All eyes at the moment are on the Royal visit to the USA to commemorate the 250 years of American independence and it is probably far to say that both sides were trying to stick to their prepared scripts which might make a faint reference to present disagreements between the respective governments but were emphasising special relationships, unique bonds and all the rest of it. But then Donald Tump decided to go off-piste and refer to the Iranian conflict implying that King Charles was fully committed to the American involvement in the conflict. The British diplomatic team must have been holding their breaths wondering what else Trump would say as our King was trying to keep as non-political as possible. I am sure that the British officials will be so relieved when all of these junketings are over and the King and Queen are safely back home in the UK. I am sure that ing Charles was playing his part as well as he could but with an unpredictable American president almost anything can happen. As soon as this American adventure is over, attention will turn to domestic British politics because all of the indications are that the Labour party will be put to the sword in the local elections in a week’s time and they will lose many of their voters both to the right (to the Reform party) and  to the left (the Greens) I suspect that it is quite probable that Starmer may well be toppled at this point, the only massive stumbling block being that there is no evident successor to assume the role of Prime Minister as Andy Burnham, the current mayor of Manchester, has yet to find and win a seat in Parliament.  My son called around this morning after his early morning swim and we dissected world politics a little – he has told me about a couple of really informative programmes about the Suez crisis that I really must make time to watch. Perhaps because I was a little over tired I had a rather disturbed night’s sleep last night but the day is dawning brightly with the prospect of first shopping and then a bit more gardening in store in this week which  actually is rather a quiet one. Both my son and I are getting ready for two ‘big’ weekends in about ten days time. I am looking forward to my trip down to South Oxfordshire to attend my friend’s birthday party (and it happens to be the anniversary of Meg’s death). On my son’s part, there is going to be a massive school reunion to be held in York where my son can meet up with many of his generation who seem to all have had successful careers but are now themselves approaching retirement age. My son is recalling some of the escapades which are part of schoolboy life and they have even located one of their old masters who is to come along to share in their celebrations (hints of ‘Goodbye, Mr, Chips’ at this point) When you meet people  after a gap of decades sometimes people are unrecognisable wheres others look as though  they have scarcely aged over their lifetimes. 

Aa it is the middle of the week, I make my way down to the Methodist Centre where I indulge in a cup of coffee and a toasted teacake, I was joined by the extremely lively 95 year old who hails from Manchester (and we had both worked in Oxford Road, Manchester in the 1960’s) and has just returned to the UK from Spain where she had lived for many years. This lady has led a very energetic life – in her younger years she had walked most of the Lake District fells and mountains whilst in Spain where he lived near the sea she used to swim across the bay every day to keep herself fit. In fact she has invited me round for a meal when we can both spare the time but she has to fit in another visit to Spain first. I bumped int one of the original coffee crowd who used to meet in the Waitrose cafe. In fact there were six of us altogether and sometimes more when other friends and acquaintances joined in. But Waitrose closed its coffee bar and many of us transferred our allegiance to the adjacent Wetherspoons. `But now three of the original six are living in residential accommodation and Meg, of course, is no longer with us so I am left with one remaining friend from the original group. But we do tend to bump each other on a Wednesday when it is my friend’s turn on the rota to open up the Methodist Centre and get things prepared  for the keep fit classes and the coffee bar. After I had spent an hour here I departed to go and do my weekly shopping which, fortunately, is extremely quiet at this time of the week. When I got home, I prepared myself a salad lunch and then watched some of the news programmes. I went outside in the mid afternoon to finally finish off the moss scraping from the patio at the back of the house and it looks so improved. However, I need to get in touch with a firm that will do the necessary re-grouting/re-pointing of the slabs (a lengthy job) before I have the whole thing pressure washed. The remainder of the afternoon was spent going through the newspapers to see if anything needed to be saved before the great ‘throwing away’ of the newspapers where the local authority collects our green bin once a fortnight. This task was assisted by the consumption of ice cream, necessary when the weather is warm. I also made a booking at the hostelry in Alcester which I am going to visit on Friday and anticipate having some of their magnificent home-made lasagne. Alcester is a pretty little Georgian town with lots of independent shops and  an array of charity shops which nearly always contain some superb merchandise. In the past, I bought some of Meg’s clothes there and the kitchenware is always well worth a look. The town also contains one of the old fashioned ironmongers crammed to the rafters  with all kinds of utensils and kitchen aids which are always  tempting and one doesn’t see in the run-of-the-mill supermarkets. In the past, I have bought some of the stationery items as well such as large packs of different sizes of envelopes which I like to have in stock.

When I woke up yesterday morning, it was to a cloudy and blustery day which I had not been expecting, as we had had a succession of bright  blue skies and early morning sunshine. I had wanted to complete some of the clearing work on my patio and this task is not unpleasant if the weather is fine but not to be fancied if the weather is somewhat inclement. It always use to amuse me when  read in one of my gardening books, principally about the sowing of seeds in the springtime that the gardener should ‘Choose a fine Day’. When browsing on my system  I found a series of abot a dozen photos of Meg that I had forgotten about and some of them are duplicates but most of them ae of Meg taken when she was in her 30’s at the Scraptoft Campus of De Montfort University bt one of them is my favourite of Meg where the original had been rescued from a staff noticeboard and another holiday snap of a group taken in Pisa with the leaning tower in the background. Meanwhile, the war (or rather ceasefire) of attrition is rumbling on in the background. Iranian officials revealed yesterday what is in the phased deal that Tehran has apparently offered to Washington. The basic idea is to negotiate an opening of the Strait of Hormuz first and set aside the stickier issue of Iran’s nuclear enrichment until the war is ended and disputes over shipping from the Gulf are resolved. The Americans just see this as playing for time and thee is zero trust between the two sides. Given the number of broken promises, not to mention deadlines, one can well imagine the Iranian frustration with the current Trump regime and although Pakistani diplomats are no doubt making their best efforts in the background, the omens are not good. Isn’t it interesting though how the whole revelations from the Epstein files has been completely forgotten about by the media whilst our attention has been distracted by a war, an assassination attempt and finally a royal visit of the King and Queen to America. But we may have a dramatic developments on the domestic political front, though, as the Commons may well vote today to refer Keir Starmer to the Committee on Privileges  on the basis of a claim of having misled Parliament – the greatest Parliamentary sin. How the vote will go is unclear, but Labour MPs may well vote reluctantly in support of the Prime Minister saying to themselves that after disastrous by-election results anticipated in just over a week’s time. he may well be forced to resign anyway. I am reminded in the final rounds of elections for s French president, deputies may well have had to vote for a candidate who they did not endorse but the alternatives, usually from the far Right, was infinitely worse.  To make their point, the Deputies used to vote with a clothes peg on their noses  which was a dramatic manifestation of their feelings and demonstrated both reluctance and distaste for voting the ways in which they did. The vote may well be influenced b various Downing Street aides who are due to give evidence before the Foreign Office Select Committee this morning and teir evidence might  be especially revealing.

I took the car int town this morning to collect my copy of my daily newspaper and, upon my return set to work to complete the rest of the moss clearance from my rear patio. I an anticipated this would only take half and hour but actually, it took the best part of an hour and a half one  had undertaken some additional weeds clearance and tidying up. It was now time for me t attend my Pilates session and, to be honest, I felt a little like ‘death warmed up’ by this stage. But despite feeling all in at the start of the session, I actually t somewhat better a the end of it and then made progress home. Jere I was disinclined to cook myself a full scale lunch so made do with half a can of soup. Then, by prior arrangement. my American friend called round and neither of us felt 100%. But after some relaxing chat and a bit of TV we both felt better. and speculated whether or endorphins had been stimulated to make s feel better. As the afternoon gave way to evening, we entertained ourselves by watching the American liberal political podcasts (which my friend finds fascinating, by the way) before we started to think about some tea for the two of s. My friend had brought along some nice Italian ham so we finished off preparing a meal of ham, cheese, cottage cheese and beetroot which  was high in protein and low in carbohydrates and therefore good for both us. I lent my friend my book entitled ‘Guts’ which I found incredibly informative when I first purchased it about eight years ago and where I have been reliably informed, the communication between specialised cells (similar to brain cells) and  he brain itself remains one of the last unexplored areas of science. The media is full of the visit of the King and Queen to America ad Trump appeared to me to be a little doddery both in reading out a prepared script and also literally holding himself together but of course the conventional Main Street Media does not concern  itself with personal details.

An interesting but theoretical question has arisen as a result f the latest assassination attempt on Donad Trump. Although the would-be assassin did not actually penetrate the assembly hall containing thousands of distinguished journalists. But if there had been a concerted effort on behalf of a group instead of one ‘lone wolf’ then Trump, his wife and at least one half of the cabinet could have been wiped out in one fell swoop. Further military style planning might have to be thought about when this annual event is staged again bt postponed to later on th ear and aalso looking to the years ahead as this is an annual event. In the House of Commons, it looks as though Kei Starmer narrowly survived a vote which meant that hos conduct would not now be referred to the Committee on Privileges which is what did for Boris Johnson at the end of the day.

After the recent quasi-assassination attempt on Trump in the USA and the impending visit of our King and Queen, the inevitable question arises about their safety and the probity of the visit.  I happen to think that allowing the visit to go ahead is probably a wise course of action for a variety of reasons, not least that the King is in a unique position to help the repair the bad state of relationships into which we have fallen with the USA. I keep saying to myself that the Trump era is surely limited if only because of the state of Trump’s health but, there again, a post-Trump regime in the USA might be almost as unfriendly as the current one, particularly if J D Vance takes over. Trump is already turning the shooting into what he hopes is a massive political advantage by saying that this shooting would never have happened if the venue had been his ‘big and beautiful’ (i.e. hideously garish) huge new ballroom he is intent on building in the White House. There are some voices in the States who are arguing that the whole thing was stage-managed and, although I would not go that far, there are some curious aspects of the whole affair. Normally, the American security services would have shot a potential assassin dead on the spot but the gunman appeared to be completely uninjured. As with so much in the current political scene in the USA, there is more here than meets the eye. I am pretty sure that our King and Queen should be safe enough in the USA and security  may well have been tightened even further but who knows? The week ahead is going to be a quiet one but the week after that promises to be rather frantic with a Spanish conversation class, a ‘Curry Club’ meeting  and then a trip at the weekend to South Oxfordshire. In the meanwhile, I am trying to get on with bits of gardening but not sufficient to wreck myself which is quite possible at this time of year. I have started to think a little more about breakfasts in a desire to start off the day healthily. If I am a little pushed for time, I have an avocado with some Thousand Island dressing in the hollow created by the removal of the (large) stone. More recently, I have started to mix together some maple syrup (of which I just happened to have some but now exhausted), Greek yogurt, full cream milk and then finally some porridge oats all the ingredients being mixed up well and then placed in the fridge overnight for the various ingredients to blend with each other. Although it is only the start of the week, I realise that there are several things that I am running out of so I probably need to make a lightning visit to the supermarket later on today. Now that that the weather has turned sunny, some ice-cream becomes a necessity rather than a luxury- I try and buy better ice-cream but I do realise that the cheaper brands are probably full of junk ingredients these days.
 
Language is the meat-and-drink of politics and this is why a few ill chosen words can end a political career. I was reminded of this on the James O’Brien LBC show when he reminded us of the gaffe made by Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary,  which probably ended his political career – or certainly destroyed his credibility, In a surprising admission, the Brexit Secretary said he had not realised how essential it was in getting food and medicine into the UK. Speaking at a technology conference, Mr Raab also admitted that the range of goods in British shops could be scaled back if a frictionless trade deal with the EU is not struck in time for Brexit. He indicates that we want a bespoke arrangement that recognises the peculiar, frankly, geographic economic entity that is the United Kingdom. ‘We are, and I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this, but if you look at the UK and how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing, and that is one of the reasons why, and there has been a lot of controversy on this, that is one of the reasons why we’ve wanted to make sure we have a specific and very proximate relationship with the EU to ensure frictionless trade at the border’.  MPs and pro-EU campaigners said his comments were proof the Government cannot be trusted to handle Brexit. Labour’s Shadow Brexit Minister Jenny Chapman asked how are we meant to trust this government to deliver a good deal for this country when we have a Brexit Secretary who doesn’t even understand the very basics of Brexit? Jo Stevens, a Labour MP and supporter of the Best for Britain campaign, said: ‘We finally have an admission of what we have known all along – that the Brexiteers had not really thought through any of the impacts of leaving the EU. British jobs, supplies and services rely on key border crossings like the Dover strait and the fact that the Brexit Secretary is only just realising this is a serious cause for concern’ Another political gaffe was that made by the Agriculture junior minister, Edwina Currie, who opined ‘Most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella’ and this, whilst  being quite true, sank her without trace. This statement caused a massive public outcry, a 60% drop in egg sales, the slaughter of 4 million hens, and led to her resignation. That provoked James O’Brien’s recollection of the Dominic Raab gaffe was the statement by the American White House Press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, that the Straits of Hormuz lay adjacent to the coastline of Iran so it is hardly any wonder that they now control them. I am reminded of the tart remark made to the effect that ‘War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography’ and indeed American lack of knowledge of this traditional academic discipline is legendary. In the morning, our domestic help called around a day earlier than usual and, after a chat, I shot into town to get some provisions. On Thursday, it is our domestic help’s 30th wedding anniversary which is also known as the ‘pearl’ anniversary. Then a really extraordinary thing happened because  our domestic help, in retrieving a roll of kitchen paper knocked behind a cupboard found a plastic bag containing some of Meg’s pearl jewellery (probably cultivated or river pearls) Delighted by this find, I evidently was delighted to make a gift of them to our domestic help to help her celebrate her anniversary in style and I also bought a bottle of rosé Prosecco and a card with which to celebrate the day. In the afternoon, after a salad lunch, I cut our back lawns which is not too big a job and then, after a bowl of ice-cream spent another ¾ hour de-mossing he patio at the rear of the house. I think this process is about two thirds completed and means that I will not be ashamed to sit out at the back once I have finished  the ‘clearance’ part of the job, perhaps as early as tomorrow.

I had a rather disturbed night, the night  before  last, largely struggling with technology again. Buoyed at my success in restoring access to the iPlayer and other channels on my Toshiba TV, I thought I would have one more attempt to see if I could locate the browser which appeared to have been removed since the last update. Although not listed in the apps list directly, i found that by searching for the term ‘browser’  could locate the primitive browser which had originally been installed – I think it might be an obscure one called ‘Silk’ So this means that I can now access my video speeches and photos from out 50th wedding anniversary on the big screen at which I am delighted. So I decided to stitch in the details of my ‘Mozart’ web site and this seemed to work up to a point as the actual web page would display. But clicking on any of the links to access the music (the whole point of the website) just generated a message which said ‘This browser is no longer supported – please update’ I was an offered three alternatives of Firefox, Chrome and Opera but in each case after the file had been loaded to the TV, I got a system message (‘Cannot open file’ as it was, after all, a TV to which I was downloading and not a computer) So after fiddling about with this for ages, in the middle of the night, I came to the view that  I could not ever get this to work on such a primitive installation of accessing the world wide web on this particular TV.  But later on in the morning when my brain had had a chance to think things through, I undertook another experiment which was to put some of the rolling displays of photos of Meg’s life on the TV and I got this to work without  a hitch. But this is because  all of the photos/videos are stored on my own web-space whereas the Mozart clips were having to work through YouTube so I have concluded that the ‘Update your browser’ message emanates not from my TV but from YouTube which I was using to play the Mozart videos and soundtracks. At least, now I know (or think I knw)

In the morning, I was due to pick up my Italian friend and take her to church in time for the 8.30am service but she texted me to say that she did not feel well enough to attend the service this morning. About once a month, we have a sort of ‘folk’ mass where instead of having an organist we have a trio of parents playing their guitars and leading the hymn singing. Today, after the service, I wet to the parish hall to have mu coffee and biscuits. There one of the parishioners is due to give birth to her second child within the next week and as she was feeling a little uncomfortable, I took her other child and jiggled it up and down on my knee (and I have the photograph to prove it) I must say I had forgotten just how heavy a 2½ year old can be but I a can astonish some of my friends and acquaintances by showing them my ‘Catholic’ baby. After the service, I go and get some money out of the ATM whilst it is quiet, fill up the car with petrol and collect my newspaper before coming home to have a ‘treat’ of a breakfast which is fried eggs on a slice of toasted sourdough bread. I was particularly pleased to receive a text from my University of Winchester friend whose birthday party I shall be attending in a fortnight’s time. So I now have complete instructions how to get to the party as well as giving in my choices of food for the sit-down meal. As the birthday party is on the actual anniversary of Meg’s death, I shall attend an early morning Mass on that day and then make tracks straight away for the 85 mile journey to South Oxfordshire.  I made myself a large curry type meal for lunch will last me for a couple of days and then, after that, I made myself give the front lawn a cutting which it needed and the weather was fine. To be honest, I was getting a bit fed up with the constant news obsession of the latest assassination attempt upon Trump and the back  awn which is easier to cut can wait until the next day. I am not an avoid follower of football but every so often a footballing story arises which grabs my attention. Now Southampton have been struggling at the bottom of the premier League all season and are in constant danger of relegation. But this year, they are having a good run in the FA Cup and were drawn against the very successful Manchester City. Yesterday, they managed to score a goal against City to make the score 1-0 and only had to hang on for 10 minutes to secure victory.But City scored equalised three minutes later and then scored a decisive extra goal towards the end of injury time to knock Southampton out of the Cup. But Manchester City have been in the final about four times in four years, and I was desperately hoping that Southampton could hang onto their lead and enjoy their place in the final. A parallel story is also happening to Leeds who are about fifth from the bottom and are today  playing Chelsea for a place in the final. I must be careful not to hear the score in any news bulletins because highlights of the match are to be shown on terrestrial TV at 10.30 this evening, so I shall watch them whilst being tucked up in bed. If Leeds do make it the final, they will almost certainly be put to the slaughter by Manchester City but in the FA Cup strange things can and do happen. When Leeds did make it the FA Cup Final in their more glorious days, they were always defeated by ‘inferior’ teams, one of them from the then (then) Second division as I remember it. Next week does not hold out any particularly exciting prospects except that on Friday, I intend to take my American friend to experience the delights of Alcester, a little  Georgian town not too far distant. The High Street is packed full of independent shops and some excellent charity outlets. In addition, one of the local hostelries always does a special pensioner’s menu home-made lasagne which is always beautifully prepared and delicious tasting but we have to ensure that we have made a booking for this two or three days in advance.

Last night, I awoke having had a dream about Meg in an incident in her life which was completely untrue – but could well have been true. They say that often the dreams you remember are ones a few seconds before you wake up and perhaps it was evoked because I had been recalling fondly some of my times with Meg to my American friend the day before. In my dream, Meg and I were on a day trip out somewhere with friends and had stopped off for refreshments. Just before we left, Meg popped into the adjacent loo so our friends said to Meg ‘Do not forget your hat!’ So, Meg made a quick visit to the loo and came back wearing a hat which we did not recognise. So, we told Meg she had got the wrong hat, and Meg was despatched back to the loo to find the correct one. When she re-emerged it was wearing a different hat which none of us recognised so my Friends exclaimed to me ‘Surely you can remember which hat she was wearing?’ to which I had to reply that I could not (to be fair, Meg did have a fair selection of hats and head coverings) So in the dream Meg was making visit after visit to the loo emerging with a different hat on each occasion and then I woke up before anything resembling the correct that had been identified. Now, I must repeat that this dream is not at all true but as Meg’s memory started to fade in her latter years, it could well have been a true story. But to return to a more brutal reality, we know that Donald Trump has a massive streak of vindictiveness against people who I think has wronged him and his ire is particularly directed against Britain who he feels failed to support him in the Iran conflict. Trump is saying that he is minded to punish Britain by withdrawing American support for our recapture of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas to our Spanish and Latin American friends) in 1982. The Argentinians are already starting to make belligerent noises about the return of the islands to Argentina and despite the fact that the Brits built an airstrip on the island immediately after their recapture, it is an interesting question whether Britain could mount a repeat capture if the islands were to be invaded again but this time with tacit American support for the Argentinians. To use a popular expression, it could be that Margaret Thatcher whose popularity shot up immediately after the recapture of the Falkland islands would  be turning in her grave. Whether the Trump view that any island laying adjacent to a much more powerful neighbour automatically ‘belongs’ to the neighbour must be a chilling thought for the inhabitants of Taiwan. Taiwan (officially the Republic of China, ROC) is an island located roughly 100 miles (160 km) off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The two are separated by the Taiwan Strait. While geographically close, they have been governed separately since 1949, though Beijing (People’s Republic of China, PRC) claims sovereignty over the island. Later on today, I have a series of Women’s international rugby fixtures to which to look forward so may try and squeeze in some patio cleaning activities around the fixtures. In the morning, I undertook a walk down into town to pick up a copy of my daily newspaper and the Saturday edition also has a supplement containing all the details of the TV broadcasts during the forthcoming week, so I was relieved that they were not sold out. When  got back, I made myself do 30 minutes patio clearing ad made a bit more progress but it was actually pretty warm outside.

The afternoon turned out to be rather a curious, not to say fraught, one. I lunched on some salad and ham and had this so that I could watch the whole of the England vs Wales Women’s rugby. As might  be expected, England dominated Wales in this match but the Welsh played some entertaining rugby and even managed to score four tries against England which they have never done before. So the Welsh team took heart from the fact that they shown improvements over recent performances  and provided an entertaining game. The Italy vs Scotland match was due to start a few minutes later and that is when  my troubles started. I knew that my Toshiba in the Music Lounge had had an automatic software update recently but I scarcely believe my eyes when access to the BBC iPlayer seemed to have been removed completely whereas there were 150 other apps, all unwatchable and devices to extract money out of you to watch the channel. I think that over the years, I have come to dread the words ‘Software upgrade’ because  problems always seem to occur immediately after un upgrade on whatever device. So I went onto the web and found that the removal of the iPlayer was quite a common problem after a software upgrade on a Toshiba. To try to rectify the situation, I eventually  got onto a Chat website (which charged £1 for the privilege) and there you could describe problems to an online TV engineer. This evidently called for the Toshiba model number which meant locating the manual which I did after a search. The TV engineer did suggest that this happened after a manufacturer’s upgrade and perhaps I might consider a FireStick. I had ignored another website popping up asking me for £22 to solve my problem which I ignored. Eventually, I solved the problem for myself  after a lot of messing about but it involved going into ‘Settings’, finding a list of ‘Apps’ and then activating/deactivating the apps with either a long or a short press on the remote. None of this was easy but at the end of the day, I did get access to the BBC iPlayer. In any event, Italy was massively defeating the Scottish women which I did not particularly  want to watch. But later on tonight, on the iPlayer there should be France vs. Ireland which might be a better contest and worth watching. As I am finishing off today, it looks as though the final attempts to secure a meeting to resolve the Iran conflict have broken down and Donald Trump has not allowed his negotiating team to leave the USA to journey to Islamabad. Trump is saying that ‘he holds all of the cards’ which of course is not the case as Iran still controls the Straits of Hormuz and there is evidently zero trust between the two main protagonists and perhaps we shall shortly see the resumption of overt hostilities.

The principal activity in which I engaged in the late afternoon before last was to carry on clearing the moss and weeds from the patio that we have in our back garden. This is actually quite a mammoth task because with Meg’s lingering illness, the task had not been completed for a couple of years and perhaps even longer. The patio is actually constructed out of reclaimed paving stones of which there are a great variety in colour and (rectangular) shape and is therefore well worth some attention to restore it to a better condition. But there is no substitute to kneeling down and performing a painstaking stone by stone  clearance. I am using a variety of tools which include a narrow pointed trowel, a wire brush, a scraper and a more standard brush. I devoted an hour to this task which was quite enough but it as to be done on a fine day and not with a cold wind whistling around you. I estimate the initial clearance is about 50% done and then, after that, there are two major tasks to be performed. The first of these will be a major re-grouting work as much of the existing cement work has perished. After that, my domestic help knows of a very good stone and patio cleaning company who will do an excellent job – but there are many ‘cowboys’ in this business o which one must be aware.  I am devoting attention to this because one could not really invite guests to sit I the back ha=garden until the patio has been restored, a complicating factor being that moss accumulates on the roof of our dormer bungalow on that side of the house and some of this tumbles onto the patio, making even more  mess to be cleared up. But some patience and devoted hard work will get the task completed before I turn my attention to other gardening activities. In the evening before last, I viewed some of the American liberal podcasts on YouTube and saw a video on the massive corruption in which Trump and his family are engaged. Much of this involves investments by the UAE (United Arab Emirates) into a crypto-currency venture established by Trump and his immediate family. As I write it looks as though the USA government are due to shovel barrowloads of cash towards  the UAE as ‘compensation’ for the Iranian war and much of this will find its way into the Trump family coffers. Donald Trump has been accused of corruption, plain and simple after it was revealed that a member of the Emirati royal family was behind a $500m investment into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company. Ethics experts say the deal – struck just days before the US president’s inauguration last January – amounts to a deep conflict of interest for the White House, amid calls for a congressional investigation into the transaction. Months after the deal, the Trump administration announced that the United Arab Emirates would be allowed to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s powerful AI chips – overriding concerns that the deal could eventually allow China access to the technology. Donald Sherman, president of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a powerful government watchdog group, said the deal is a ‘blatant, disgraceful conflict of interest and a possible violation of the Constitutions Federal Emoluments Clause. Thanks to this latest monetisation of the White House, the American people will have to question whether Trump administration policies affecting the UAE … are in the best interest of the public and American workers, or a foreign nation that padded the president’s bottom line,’ Sherman said. Four days before inauguration, Tahnoon’s emissaries agreed to acquire a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company co-owned by the Trump family, for half a billion dollars, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the deal. Normally the American Department of Justice would have a watching brief over these kinds of illegal activities but the Department of Justice is now little more than an extension of the White House and subject to Trump’s biddings. So the video report I read indicated that the level f corruption and personal enrichment of the rump family is both astounding in its scale and in pain sight as Trump and his family do not even bother to conceal the extent to which the war has enriched. By announcing the end to the war or its continuation, Trump and his family are aware of the subsequent movement of the stock markets and hence the opportunities to ma money lies in their own pronouncements. Of course, all of this flows from the Trumpian view that the law applies to other people and not to him and his family  and is used as an instrument to pursue political enemies. If liberals were to think that a day of judgement will surely come when the Trump regime falls, which it must, this ignores the fact that Trump through presidential pardons to excuse any wrong doing before he actually leaves office, distant though that date may be. 

I went into town by car and visited my ‘Gifts of Love’ venue as I usually do at the end of the week .It is not you typical coffee bar where you greeted with a hug and a kiss, have some homemade cake and coffee and leave with another hug and a kiss but that is why it is part of my normal routine  by now. I had made an arrangement for my American friend to call around and we had agreed a very simple dinner of gammon steaks, cabbage and baked potato but tis was fine for both us although  I did prepare a starter of melon and ham. After lunch, our son popped round  and soon my son and American friend were engaged in discussions about the delights of the Severn Valley railway in general and diesel electric locomotives in particular. We then settled down and watched the film ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ which  is a particular favourite of mine. This is a love story, a war story and plenty of funny as well dramatic incidents in between and my friend enjoyed it tremendously not having seen it before.We enjoyed a little  supper of melon. blueberries and yogurt and  played my friend my videoclip of Me at her best over eight years ago now in a 50th wedding anniversary speech.

As so often happens in these grim times, the cartoonists have been busy at work. Two in particular  have found their way into my Inbox, the first of which depicts Trump standing in front of a row of furled, black sun umbrellas with a strap line that for six hours, Trump thought he was negotiating with the Iranians. The second depicts the personnel on an American warship one saying to the other that new orders had been received to the effect that they had to wait until the Stock Exchange opened before launching the next attack. And right in the middle of a war, the Trump regime has removed the head of the US Navy, on what grounds it is unclear. The head of the Army was replaced about a week ago so I suppose this balances things up. What is particularly interesting about the Iranian conflict at this moment of time is that the Iranians possess two key negotiating cards and potential levers against the Americans. The first of these is that my reasons of geography, the Iranians are in de facto control of the Straits of Hormuz immediately proximate to their shores (a little like the English Channel) and short of a really massive ground invasion there is nothing that American military might can do about it. The second critical factor is just the passage of time as Trump’s support (as well as his health) are ebbing away day by day and week by week and Trump is feeling the need for a deal. In the meanwhile, the Iranians have to do nothing except wait until such time as the Americans are forced into ‘de facto’ concessions. In our domestic politics, we are also in a countdown situation after the enquiries into the Mandelson affair. We are in the period before the May 7th local elections in which it looks as though the Labour party will be put to the sword and calls for Starmer’s resignation will become overwhelming. So whilst desperately unhappy, Labour MPs are just biding their time, a little like turkeys  the run up to Christmas. An evident leader in waiting, Andy Burnham is not yet in Parliament which prevents him being portrayed as the ‘prince over the water’ so I suspect that the Labour party are wondering if their weakest MP might do the decent thing and die soon so that a by-election can be called in a safe Labour seat (but in the present, febrile mood of the party, perhaps there is no such thing as a safe Labour seat) Later on in the day, I anticipate doing my Tai Chi and having a chat with one or two of the regulars at the Methodist Centre which I have not visited since my return from hospital but I am pleased to have the week’s shopping out of the way, having moved my weekly shopping day from a Thursday  to a Wednesday (when the stores are very quiet anyway – a fellow shopper and I were chuntering away to each other because there were no manned tills but only the self-scanning tills which evidently we both wanted to avoid)

In the morning, I had my normal Tai Chi session in which our instructor was concentrating today upon our breathing techniques. This was followed by the normal coffee and toasted teacake and a chat with some of the regulars. There was a considerable amount of discussion about  a report in a local newspaper that there are dozens of individuals in Worcestershire County Council who are paid in excess of £100,000 a year. As you might expect, the report was greeted with universal horror but I wish we had more information about which roles were attracting these salaries and some  justification for the monies paid. Leaving aside the Chief Executive although I have some doubts whether these salaries are justified in local government the argument is that for certain roles (for example an IT director) this is the rate for the job and one has to compete with the private sector to attract and retain individuals of the right calibre. It could be that there are some roles that are self-justifying – in the past could be paid a high salary of a large amount of money had been extracted from European and similar funds. Trying to talk around a subject when you only have the newspaper headlines and not the detail can be frustrating. I left the Methodist Centre and paid a quick visit to the supermarket where I bought some melon and ham for tomorrow’s lunch and then returned home to make a conventional meal of ham in in onion gravy, a baked potato and beans. Trying to care of myself as the years advance,  I am always interested in recent research findings on the most effective forms of exercise. Regular exercise can help to manage blood pressure, because it makes our hearts stronger. But according to a huge 2023 study, which looked at 270 trials from 1990-2023, isometric exercises might be the most effective at the job, with ‘wall sits’ the best performer among these. Researchers found that isometric exercise was more likely, on average, to lower blood pressure than aerobic exercise training, dynamic resistance training, combined training, and high-intensity interval training, though all forms were still immensely helpful. Isometric exercise, sometimes called static exercise involves keeping your body still while you tense specific muscles for a set period of time. You don’t move your joints during the movement. It is the opposite of dynamic, or isotonic exercise, which involves little load and consistent pressure on various muscles, for example, running and swimming. Most forms of exercise involve a combination of isometric and isotonic exercise, though some are 100% one or the other. Wall sits are generally held for 30 to 60 seconds for beginners, aiming for 1–2 minutes (intermediate) or up to 3+ minutes(advanced) to build serious leg strength and endurance. The goal is to maintain a 90-degree angle with knees over ankles for 3–4 sets, 2–3 times a week. I happen to know that my Pilates teacher is very keen on this particular exercise so I may well attempt to incorporate it into a daily routine. First, though, find a good piece of wall that it important not to get it marked whilst it gets leant against and the skirting board always gets a little in the way.

The evening before last, I had a night out at our local Arts Centre called the ‘Artrix’ where was a feed from the Royal Opera House of Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ and I knew that the total audience would only be about 40 for this and the tickets incredibly reasonable at £15.00. We were a little party of 4 in total as I took along my American friend as well as my son and daughter-in-law (as we had recently seen ‘La Traviata’ in the same venue) Now ‘The Magic Flute’ is not my favourite Mozart opera but, nonetheless I thoroughly enjoyed every second of last night’s production by David McVicar. The look behind the scenes component of the broadcast was fascinating and the technical complexity of the puppetry, lighting and staging absolutely amazing. Just as a little historical note, Meg and I saw the actual Magic Flute and Magic chimes (played on a glockenspiel) used in the original production when we visited one of the Mozart museums in Salzburg some decades ago now on one of our European holidays. I can also claim to having (illicitly) touched Mozart’s piano in the same museum hoping that by some spiritual process I could commune with some of Mozart’s genius. After this experience, I consulted the web to see what other productions, particularly of Mozart, are available locally. There is a production of ‘La Traviata’ in Wolverhampton actually on my birthday in May but I shall be travelling back from Gloucestershire that day and so may give it a miss but there is a production of ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ in the theatre in Malvern in July which I may well make the effort to attend if tickets are still available. Malvern is 23 miles away and, fortunately, the M5 will speed up the journey so  will see if my friend wishes to accompany me. After my last holiday (after which I need a holiday  to get over the holiday) I am thinking about logistics for future stays away from home and think that Yorkshire at the end of August to coincide with my sister’s birthday is probably the most important  date for which to make plans- evidently, I have to start a savings plan at the same time. The weather is beautifully bright today and I am looking forward to a good old gossip with my domestic help who I have not seen for a fortnight since I went away on holiday and she has undertaken some jury service. Just occasionally, I glance back to what was happening a year ago as Meg was evidently failing and I noted that on the same day last year the only food I had managed to et inside Meg were a few spoonfuls of ‘tiramisu’ first  thing in the morning about which I was inevitably worried and knew that the end was not too far off. In the meanwhile, my days are filled with thinking ahead to forthcoming U3A activities and excursions whilst at the same time praying for some fine weather to get some gardening (weeding!) done. The day before, for example, there was such a sharp wind that any gardening might have been a most unpleasant experience.

In the morning, our domestic help and I had a lot to talk about and I showed her my purchases of slipovers both in Scotland and also obtained through Amazon. I popped down into town to collect my newspaper and then went on to do quite a light week’s shopping. With having been away, I actually had quite a lot of stuff in stock. During the morning, I received quite a long call from my long standing Italian friend who lives down the road. To be honest, I thought  was about to ‘lose’ her as she had fully intended to sell her house (it was, in practice, sold) and then go and live with her daughter in Gloucestershire. But events had conspired against her and every large property that she had intended to buy jointly with her daughter and son-in-law had actually been snapped up by the time they came to view it. This whole process of the intended move was actually making my friend feel quite poorly so now she and her daughter have decided to stay put in their respective houses. So I confided to my friend that I think she actually come to absolutely the right decision because I was not convinced that uprooting oneself from a community in which one had lived or 60 years was a sensible move. So I have agreed that I shall pick up my friend early on Sunday morning and that we can go to the church service together, followed of course by coffee and biscuits in the adjoining parish hall. I hope that my friend and I can have coffee with each other about once a week and that I can continue to persuade her to make the most of the various social networks that she must have built up over the decades. For myself, I could sell up and go and live in Yorkshire but now that I am developing a range of social contacts down here and it would moving away from my son, I would not really contemplate it. Returning to domestic political news, the view rapidly emerging amongst what I might call the ‘commentariat’ is that Keir Starmer had made a bad error of judgement picking a fight with the civil service and sacking a very able and well respected senior civil servant. The point is being well made that in order to pursue one’s own political agenda it is important that government, civil service, parliamentary parties and advisers are all pulling in more or less the same direction and not engaging in back biting and factionalism to which the Labour party seems to be particularly prone.  On my son’s recommendation, I have my TV viewing allocated for this evening as it is the well known artist Grayson Perry conducting interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley in an attempt to see what makes them tick. The programme has received good reviews, and it appears that Grayson Perry is attempting to ascertain whether the rapidly emerging AI technologies can be used to humanise the world. Although it has been a theme of science fiction since the 1950’s,I do wonder though whether we might be on the threshold of a technology which is unstoppable and out of human control. After all, the whole growth of the internet shows that any degree of regulation or control is tenuous in the extreme.

Just as a sequel and a closing note to the discussion held yesterday on wearing the scarves of ‘other’ institutions, the settled view is that nobody cares about such things any more. All universities are merchandising parts of their apparel as part of a wider marketing strategy (popularly known as ‘merch’ in the vernacular) and even Oxford and Harvard are selling their ‘T’ shirts to anybody who wished to buy them with no questions asked. But the question of entitlement is not entirely vacuous because in discussion with my son we reminded ourselves that a man had recently been convicted for wearing a row of medals at a Remembrance Day parade to which he was not entitled. In between the range of items from scarves at one end and medals at the other, there are questions that might be harder to determine such a the ‘old school tie’  Turning to contemporary matters,  the evidence session of Sir ‘Olly’ Robbins is due to start at 9.00am in the morning and as this might be explosive evidence, I want to watch it with a bowl of breakfast cereal in my lap at the same time. The day is a little topsy turvy as I was wide awake at 6.00am and should have got up then but did not, having the luxury of an extra hour in bed and I heard my son moving around downstairs as he was breakfasting here after his early morning swim. So it will be TV first and then a walk into town followed by Pilates in mid-day. So I ensured that I was seated in front of the TV by 9.00am this morning and watched the committee proceedings for a couple of hours.   I think it is a fair comment to say that Sir Olly came out as a truly professional civil servant and could see why he had risen to the heights that he had. There was no evasion or ‘double speak’ as it were as though it was an episode of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ Instead there was a lot of careful explanation of the process of vetting and an absolute belief that all procedures had been complied with ‘by the book’ But there were, and several misunderstandings surrounding the whole process which  are not as straightforward as might be imagined. The first misunderstanding is that in order to avoid ministerial interference, the vetting procedures are conducted in a kind of ‘back box’ as it were in which detailed information about an individual’s background and activities is discussed under conditions of utmost secrecy. The body charged with this task is a specialised agency and does it work for a number of departments although Defence and the Foreign Office are two of its most important ‘customers’.  It is carried out by United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV), a specialist agency within the Cabinet Office, and applies to thousands of relatively junior officials working in government departments and overseas, as well as senior figures like Mandelson. The process is designed to identify whether people applying for government jobs pose a security risk, either because they might seek to abuse their position, or because their personal lives make them a potential blackmail target – for example, if they are in high levels of debt or are having an affair. In practice, it means candidates have to fill out various questionnaires, including being asked to provide detailed information about their finances, internet use and medical conditions. Official records are also checked, including a candidate’s credit history and any criminal offences. Records held by the Security Service are also reviewed. Those being vetted then have to undergo an interview with a specially trained vetting officer, which is designed to be intrusive. Candidates are asked about very personal areas like friendships, family, health and sex life, sometimes over several hours. Now we come to a fundamental misunderstanding of how the system  works, This committee does not work on a simple ‘pass or fail’ binary decision (like a driving test) but will produce a series of recommendations (which might include a ‘severe problem’ category) but it itself does not make the decision. In the case of the Foreign Office, the recommendations are passed to an equally expert team within the Foreign Office who are themselves risk assessors and the decision might be made to appoint a candidate, appoint with mitigations e.g.  to remove potential conflicts of interest or not to appoint. This is a much more ‘analogue’ rather than a ‘binary’ process that most might expect. In the case of Mandelson, it looked as though the decision was made to ‘appoint with mitigation’ and the permanent secretary such as Ollie Robbins might have been brought in at a final stage after the UKSV (Uk Security Vetting) recommendations had been input into the Foreign Office’s own specialist security team. It might be of some surprise that UKSV subjects thousands of candidates each year to such procedures ad therefore has a massive degree of experience although the Mandelson case is a bit special.

After watching these proceedings, I went into town by car to pick up a copy of ‘The Times‘ but had to make a special journey to the garage to pick up my copy. Then it was a case of getting ready for my Pilates class, undertaking the class with only three of us in it this week and then coming home and heating up some frozen risotto for my lunch before resumed watching the debate on the Mandelson affair which was now broadcast live on the Parliament channel. Although a complicated picture, the smoke is now clearing somewhat and various themes have emerged. Firstly,it is clear that No.10 had been desperate for the Mandelson appointment to clear the vetting procedures and to have him in post probably before the inauguration of President Trump.  Sir Olly denied that any pressure threatened the integrity of the process. Very few high profile cases had been turned down – the last one might have been under Margaret Thatcher about 40 years ago – and this might have led No. 10 to believe that vetting was only a formality. But it also has emerged that Starmer wanted a former chief of communications to be fast-tracked for a ‘Head of Mission’ role and many on the left of the Labour party think that a rightist faction in No 10 was pushing ‘jobs for the boys’ letting Starmer off the hook without Starmer realising that he was being helped. If security vetting was withdrawn when Mandelson was only just in post then this would have dire political consequences for Starmer. One suspects that it is just a case of a few more nails in the coffin and Starmer will be gone after the disastrous election results anticipated on 7th May.

Last night, after the visit of my family, I was quietly reading my copy of ‘The Sunday Times’ whilst also listening to the fulminations of James O’Brien, the LBC host who regularly broadcasts against the crassness and illegalities of the Iran war. Last night, he was listing the various reasons that had been advanced for the hostilities to commence and had reached about eight or nine on his list before he invited viewers to supply any more that hadn’t occurred to him. O’Brien also pointed out the pusillanimous nature of some of the British press who had vociferously called for the UK to enter the war but now that hostilities were going so badly wrong had relegated the item to deep inside their pages such as Page 10 preferring tittle-tattle rather than accounts of how badly the war was going. A rather disturbing analysis doing the rounds in the minds of some experts is that Trump will be quite content to let the war drag on until about September at which point he can declare the mid-term elections to be held in November to be postponed. As Trump is heading for a massive defeat, this possibility  cannot be lightly discarded. But the consequences for the UK economy are likely to be severe and one analysis published recently has put the job losses in the UK at about 250,000 as well as the twist to inflation.The major political focus this week though will be our own domestic politics in which Starmer will be strenuously denying that he was ever informed of the fact that Mandelson had failed his vetting. There is a very arcane and obscure argument going on at the moment that the civil, servants who knew Mandelson had failed his vetting were forbidden by some legal process to communicate this result to the Prime Minister until the result had assessed and framed in a particular way. I, for one, do not follow the intricacies of this argument whatsoever but no doubt we will be exposed to a lot more of this circuitous kind of reasoning as the story continues to unfold during the course of the forthcoming week. The weather has taken a turn for the better and although it is sunny first thing in the morning, it looks as though we are going to have one of those ‘whited over’ days with a preponderance of cloud for much of the day and temperatures only arising as far as 10° which seems to be a little low for me as we are approaching the end of the month. I have detailed some more grass cutting to be done if the weather holds and then the weeds have  started to multiply down the roadway approaching the house so I must tackle these as soon as I have both the inclination and the energy. I thought that I had felt particularly tired after the administration of my COVID booster jab a few days ago and the result of my searched on the web revealed the following. A COVID-19 booster shot can cause you to feel tired or fatigued  and fatigue is one of the most commonly reported side effects of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, indicating that your immune system is responding to the vaccine. So perhaps my feelings of lassitude are not imagination but a response to the vaccine but I have felt better as the days have passed since the booster jab.

In the late morning, I went down the hill by car to pick up my copy of the newspaper. I then continued my journey onto Asda where  needed to buy some extra supplies of fruit and one or two items that I cannot get in my normal shopping. Then when I arrived home, I made myself a ‘fish-on-bread’ type of lunch and started to contemplate a lawn cutting job for the afternoon. The sun was shining brightly but it was pretty cold together and the grass at the back of the house was pretty thick so I had to take some care that I dd not overload the mower to make it ‘baulk’ at too heavy a cut but fortunately, I got all of this done and then the mower cleaned up in time for me to watch the Prime Ministerial statement on the Mandelson affair. My mind has been exercised by a seemingly trivial question to which I wanted to know the answer. Some time ago I thought I had lost my Victoria University of Manchester scarf which I have had for the last sixty years but fortunately turned up in a rucksack, At the time, I hunted on the web for a replacement but could not find an exact  replacement.  But I did manage to locate and purchase a UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) scarf which was identical to the main university scarf but had an original orange stripe. When this arrived, I it has been my constant companion for the last week or so. So the quasi-legal question I have asked myself if whether I am strictly entitled to besport a UMIST scarf. The answer, according to ChatGBT is quite a nuanced one. The strictest interpretation of the legalities involved are that only undergraduates of UMIST should wear the scarf. But UMIST was technically just the technology faculty of the main University of Manchester (called ‘Owens’) until it achieved the status of an independent university in 1994. Then ten years later, it merged back into its ‘mother’ university in 2004. I had graduated in 1968 and whilst I was a student there, Owns and UMIS were joined at the hip, as it were, as  one was equally a member of both Student Unions. In practice, Meg and I used to attend folk nights at ‘The Tech’ each Sunday evening. Students  from the two universities shared places in the Halls of Residence and there were many cultural and shared facilities across the two institutions. So, my wearing of a UMIST scarf has some degree of legitimacy – and now that the University has completely changed its official colours, the UMIST scarf I now have can be regarded as a legacy product. Incidentally, there is no legal reason who one should not wear the scarf of whatever university one chooses but the whole habit of buying and wearing university scarves now seems an incredibly outdated cultural fashion but I quite enjoy be-sporting my latest purchase to the full (whilst the original scarf s being securely kept in the chest we keep in our hall for the storage of hats, gloves and scarves).