I awoke yesterday to a rather gloomy day which is a change after the severe hear experienced last week – it looks as though these conditions are to prevail for most of the day but temperatures hovering at about 21° for most of the morning. There is going to be a major political speech by Andy Burnham later in the day where the probable next Prime Minister will lay out his vision for the future. Most incoming occupants of No 10 like to be remembered  for one huge policy and I remember that in the case of John Major, who succeeded Margaret Thatcher, it was the ‘Citizen’s Charter’ to be followed by the ‘Patient’s Charter’. and in Andy Burnham’s case, it is to create a  ‘No 10 in the North’ accompanied by a concomitant commitment to devolve many much more decision making to the regions and to city mayors. Of course, we shall have to wait and see what is actually being proposed and, as is often said, the ‘devil is in the detail’ I expect that the London and metropolitan elite may give this whole plan at best only a lukewarm reception as it may spell out the transfer of power and money from some of the richer to some of the poorer regions of the UK. Whether this transfer of ‘Manchesterism’ as it has been dubbed will be very successful is quite another question. The Boris Johnson government tried to create a ‘Department of Levelling Up’ and whether much was achieved as a consequence it is for the economic historians of the future to decide. I suspect that the Boris Johnson initiative did curb and mitigate the increasing power and influence of the more prosperous South East of the UK  without  actually reversing any of the trends and hence the Reform party could tap into the discontent felt by many of the regions left behind. I think it is true to say that on the few occasions I have journeyed to London in recent years I have felt that I am entering a somewhat different country such is the disconnect between  the generally prosperous capital and the rest of the country. In this respect, I often think of the Crossrail project which attracted hardly any public attention whereas HS2 linking the capital with the Midlands and the North only made it as far as Birmingham. Crossrail, or the Elizabeth line as it is widely known, is the newest railway through the UK capital. With London’s population set to reach 10 million by 2030, it is’ designed to improve a public transport system already struggling to cope. The railway was once the biggest infrastructure project in Europe. It took 14 years to build and  measures 118km long and includes 42km of track in new tunnels under London. It connects the city of Reading in Berkshire and Heathrow airport in west London, to Abbey Wood in south London and Shenfield in Essex. Linking 40 stations – 10 of them new – the line provided the biggest increase in central London’s train capacity ever delivered by a single engineering project. It is expected to see 200 million passenger journeys every year and the central section opened on 24 May 2022. The week in prospect is rather a ‘non-week’ for me as I have no U3A activities in prospect but of course the week marks the end of June and the start of July or the second half of the year. 

I have developed a theory about the performance  of the England football team which I am trying to validate by asking friends and acquaintances a simple question. My theory is that the England game is so dominated by strikes (i.e. goals) and strikers that all of the prestige and rewards of the game are focused on the strikers and not the defenders. Hence, we do not have, or even develop, talents in defence which is why the England team appears so vulnerable. The Ghana game was a case in point because their whole game is structured around defence and one saw because when an England players received a pass, he was immediately surrounded by about four Ghanaian players and hence there was no way through. So when the England backs are under pressure, the commentators would argue that one of the English strikers might drop back in defence whereas for the Ghana team it is not the odd striker called into defence but the whole of the team To validate my theory, I asked my chiropodist who called around  today and whose level of interest in the game probably matches mine if she could name some of the English strikers. She immediately came up with a list of three but when I asked for similar names providing the England defence, she could not name a single defender This absolutely matches my own experience as well and thus it will be rather flukey if the England team make much progress in the later stages of the competition. I lunched on a prawn omelette complemented with some salad left over from the weekend and ate rather late in the day as I was quite absorbed by the Andy Burnham vision of the future, outlined in a major speech in Manchester.  The highlights of this were the notion to create a Northern No10 and to transfer some important governmental functions to it. The second pledge was to restore a good level of council house building but I wonder how much of this come to fruition unless a lot of ‘brown’ sites (previously developed land) is utilised rather than green open spaces.  In the course of the afternoon, I located the series of documentaries in three parts of the whole of the Suez debacle. Here, the English and French tried to utilise the Israelis to start a phoney war against Gamal Abdul Nasser, the Egyptian leader to regain control of the Suez canal. The Americans facing an election did not want to be involved in any foreign ventures so the UK was left with a humiliating climbdown – and lost the services of Anthony Eden, the Prime Minister, as a consequence. The whole lesson to be learnt from the Suez debacle is that Britain’s ability to act as an erstwhile colonial power had come to an abrupt end and without support from the rich and powerful Americans we were in effect a ‘toothless tiger’ I had always supposed that this phrase had Chinese origins as indeed it had. The original Chinese idiom—referring to something that appears formidable but is actually weak and ineffectual—was popularised globally in the 1940s and 1950s by Chinese leader Mao Zedong during interviews and political speeches against Western powers. Over time, native English speakers substituted ‘tiger’ into a more menacing, predatory metaphor (toothless tiger) to describe an organisation, law, or threat that lacks the ability to inflict harm or enforce its rules. 

The afternoon before last was a quiet one but I browsed across the TV channels and saw again the closing half hour of a film I had first seen in about 1957 or 1958. The film was ‘The Desert Fox’ and was unusual in that it was a very sympathetic portrayal of the career of Rommel, the German adversary of Montgomery in the deserts of northern Africa in the second World War. James Mason delivers a critically acclaimed, restrained performance as German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in the 1951 biographical film ‘The Desert Fox’. The movie portrays Rommel’s final years, his leadership of the Afrika Korps in WWII, and his ultimate descent into a conspiracy against Adolf Hitler. This was a brave film to be made only six years after the end of the war but I remember it made quite a deep impression on me at the time. At the boarding school that I attended in the late 1950’s, at the  first night back at school after a vacation break generally a good film was shown to us and I can remember quite a lot of the films shown us including ‘The Student Prince’ On Sunday nights, if we did not have a film, we would have a whilst drive (where you move from table to table and new partners after every few games) which I always enjoyed. In the early evening, the doorbell rang and it was my Asian neighbour from across the front lawned area in front of the house with a bag of freshly prepared samosas which his wife had just made. This was a wonderful kind thought and I shall look forward to eagerly to their consumption. In Indian subcontinent, samosas are prepared with an all-purpose flour (locally known as maida) and stuffed with a filling, often a mixture of diced and cooked or mashed boiled potatoes, onions, green peas, lentils, ginger, spices and green chillies. I am not sure exactly what ingredients my Asian neighbour will have used but it is always a heartwarming gesture to be offered food by neighbours. The evening before yesterday was the day of the anticipated World Cup match between England and Panama and after a lack-lustre first half, the score remained at 0:0. Eventually, in the second half England started playing with a little more urgency and then scored a couple of well-taken goals. This meant that England had progressed in this World Cup by playing for some 150 minutes in the last three matches, including  this one, until they actually scored a goal and unless they up their game considerably, I can see England being knocked out quite early on in the competition. The England defence seems pretty shaky even against inferior opposition and is vulnerable to a quick opposition break-away. in fact Panama did score a wonderful break-away goal but the VAR video system showed there to be an offside but only by an incredibly small margin, perhaps as little as a kneecap, so this was a vivid illustration of the England weakness in this area. In the morning, I awoke to a layer of thick cloud but a glance at the dry patio showed that we had not had any rain during the night and I am hopeful that a good downpour will occur later in the day, now that I have the lawns cut. During the course of the transmissions of the football by ITV, I notice an advert for the forthcoming Nations Cup rugby competition. This is a new competition  and this is what I discovered about it. The Nations Championship debuts in July 2026. Two groups of teams compete in a Northern versus Southern Hemisphere tournament format across six rounds, with three fixtures in July and again in November, before culminating in the first of its kind Finals Weekend to decide the dominant nation and balance of power between the rugby hemispheres, every two years. In the Nations Championship, every point, result and match matters, to every team. This brings together the twelve biggest international rugby teams in the world, packed with the best players in the sport, competing to win rugby’s newest title. So this will brighten up next weekend for me.

The Sunday morning pattern took on its usual shape with my attending church for the 8.30 service in the morning, after which I have coffee and biscuits in the parochial hall. Afterwards, I normally go along to a local BP garage where they have a do-it-yourself car washing machine. If you are very quick and have a small car, this can be done for as little as £2.00 but I generally double this and the amount of time that is bought There are a variety of ‘programmes’ that can be activated within your allotted time span and I tend to go for a quick pre-wash with a minimum level of detergent, followed by a foaming low pressure clean and then finishing off with a very high pressure rinsing. I find that doing this week by week suits me down to the ground as it probably does a more through job than I can manage at home and is a lot less strenuous than heaving buckets of water all over the place. When I got home, I started preparing things for lunch which happened to be quite minimal as my American friend was going to bring some quiche around and I had purchased a Mediterranean vegetable mix which needed an oven roasting. Once we had lunched, we eventually located the YouTube version of ‘Rigoletto’ which we had started to view last week. This week, we concluded our viewing of the really dramatic ending to the opera (which I did not spoil for my American friend by telling her about the ultimate twist in the story line). We then made our way to our local park where we have our evening constitutional walk and then we retuned home to a light supper of samosas (kindly provided by our Asian neighbour) complemented by some salad. Afterwards we viewed the second half of one of the first football matches in the knockout stages of the World Cup being Canada (one of the co-hosts) vs. South Africa. After quite an exciting match, the Canadians snatched the deciding goal with only about three minutes of stoppage time left and this meant that the game as a whole did not have to go into extra time and penalty shoot-outs. England play Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday next and the result of this contest is difficult to predict.

The night before last was cooler and I, for one, managed to get to sleep practically as soon as my head had touched the pillow so the intensely hot spell is thankfully coming to an end. The hot weather zone sitting over most of the country is moving away eastwards and will be replaced by somewhat cooler and fresher weather blowing in from the Atlantic. I valued the walk in the park which I undertook with my American friend and in the park, there was a magnificent and somewhat cooler breeze blowing which we both appreciated. We shared the experiences of the day with each other and chatted with a solitary dog walker who was explaining to us her pleasant experience of cruises she had undertaken since she had lost her partner some years before. After I returned home, I had a light repast of some melon and watched ‘Question Time’ which had been displaced from its usual time slot, perhaps because of the football. I watched the football a little  and the became absorbed into what turned out to be quite a long documentary on the life and work of Mozart which the YouTube algorithm had thrown in my direction. In the morning upon scanning the international news, I learned that Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 100% import tariff on the UK over its digital services tax on American social media firms. The US president also said it would supersede Britain’s existing trade deal. Mr Trump had previously raised the spectre of such a move unless Britain dropped the 2% levy on the revenues of several major US tech companies. The tax targets companies whose worldwide revenues from digital activities exceed £500m, with more than £25m of the revenue from UK users. So all of this means is that the UK is in hock to the large American corporations such as Amazon, Google and the rest and we cannot get them to pay the appropriate amount of tax to which we as a nation are entitled. The large American corporations have the ability to ‘shift’ their profits from one country to another so that they can take advantage of the lower tax rates available in some countries. If there is a solution to this problem, it probably lies at the European level in which all countries can shelter underneath the shelter of a joint European tax policy but, of course, such an approach is closed off to us since we left the EU and countries like the UK can be picked off one by one. Any British government, including the present Labour administration, can point to financial turbulence which arose far distant from our shores (the original financial crisis, then the COVID pandemic, then the war in Ukraine only to be followed by the present Iranian conflict and all overlaid by the 6%-8% reduction in our GDP following Brexit) and one can see that the room for manoeuvre by any British government is limited in the extreme. How much of this has percolated into the minds of the great British public , I could not say but it is the present generation of politicians who have to shoulder all of the blame. Part of the problem is that blaming the international order looks to the British public like whinging and a refusal to accept responsibility, but I would not like to be a minister in ay British government at the moment. Europe as a whole is suffering from problems of an ageing population, declining birth rates and immigration flows the benefits of which may be uncertain and certainly not immediate. 

The morning turned out to be quite a full one. On my way down into town, I noticed my Irish friend doing some outside gardening work so I swung the car around onto the service road outside his house so that I could have a brief chat with him.I knew that today was the day in which Bromsgrove (public) school was to have an annual service for its leavers and I realise from past observations of this event, it is also an occasion for mothers, sisters and girlfriends to get dressed up in their most fashionable clothing and to demonstrate this to the world at large. I had received an invitation to tbs event via a distant friend but decided (wisely as it turned out) not to attend the church service. There was massive competition to get into the nearest carpark to the church which was the local authority car park adjacent to Waitrose and cars were queuing about six deep patiently waiting for a space to appear. Perhaps it was not surprising that on three occasions when I was patiently waiting for a space to appear a big and expensive car zoomed ahead of me and occupied the space for which I was evidently waiting. I picked up my newspaper from Waitrose and bought some coffee after which I availed myself of the ‘free’ coffee made available to Waitrose cardholders. The elderly coffee-drinking lady sitting next to me indicated that she had kept cool during the past week by hunting out the shops with the most efficient air conditioning and effectively staying in them for most of the day. Then I journeyed to Asda and bought some of those items unavailable in my local supermarket such as bicarbonate of soda (which I bought to mix with vinegar and some washing up liquid to make a home-made remedy to alleviate the effects of black spot stains on my patio, occasioned by moss tumbling off the roof during the night) I bought some extra fruit and salad and then made for home but had an extraordinary motoring incident on the way home. As I proceeding along quite busy and well-used road  which runs along the back of the local parish church, I was confronted by the most enormous tractor and combine-harvester. This vehicle literally took up the whole of the road space and I had to reverse about 150 yards, with this great monster bearing down on me as I ‘retreated’ . When and if this monstrosity hit even more major roads, it would probably cause some traffic chaos but he was going to have his way as I retreated. Naturally, I was not a happy bunny about all of this as you can imagine. Upon my return home, I cooked myself some chicken pieces which I heated in a jar of pasta tomato sauce and a smidgeon of some pre-cooked rice.

Yesterday was a case of negotiating and managing what may prove to the hottest day of the current heat wave and it was a day in which, again, a record was made of the hottest-ever June day of 36.7° recorded at Merryfield in Somerset. I had a sort of plan in place to cope with yesterday because my American friend called around and we took ‘care’ of each other by having copious supply of cold cordial and seeking out the coolest places in the house. We made a salad lunch together and then ended the afternoon after which the temperature had just lowered a tad which meant that we could enjoy a bit of our evening supper ‘al fresco’ as it were. I am always quite well supplied with fruit so we made a whole fruit salad to share between us complemented with just a little dollop of ice cream and some plain Greek yogurt. This was most welcome and after the patio as been cleaned up and given its daily brush, made for a very pleasant environment. After supper was consumed and the dishes washed up, we settled down to watch the Germany vs. Ecuador match in the World Cup and this turned out to be one of the most exciting and memorable matches in the whole competition. There was none of the ‘slow and patient’ build-up that we have grown used to expecting from England performances but instead, both teams adopted a frontal attacking approach. Germany scored first but the Ecuadorians equalised soon afterwards and from that point on it became a really thrilling match to watch with the eventual winner always in doubt. The Ecuadorians scored a deserved winning goal in the 77th minute and this meant an exceptionally tense last quarter of an hour whilst the Ecuadorians defended with all of their might. The emotional outbursts over this historic victory over the defeat of one of the tournament favourites was a sight to behold with may of the Ecuadorian team in tears of joy and relief, as they now progress towards the last 32 of the World Cup, incidentally, almost certainly putting aid to Scotlands very slim chances of qualifying as a best placed third team. Meanwhile, we have been appalled by the shocking earthquake in Venezuela in which one quake was followed by another less a minute later. As the movement of the tectonic plates was at quite a shallow level then the level of destruction has proved to be enormous, with 235 deaths reported and a figure of 4,300 missing or injured. Apparently the last time there was an earthquake of tis magnitude in Venezuela was in 1967 but I do not really remember it, working as I was in a cardboard box factory during summer whilst Meg worked next door in the McVities biscuit factory. Of course those summer vacation factory jobs have disappeared but the experience of working  in factories taught Meg and I quite a a lot at the time. The evening before last threatened to be a hot and sticky one in which sleep was always threatened. However, with the windows open and the assistance of a small fan, I managed to get to sleep quickly after going to bed.  I was desperately hoping that some thunderstorms might develop in the later stages of the night, but it was not to be and the chance of rain, according to me weather app is zero today and with a 35% chance tomorrow. I intend to make at little peregrination along the High Street  to have a coffee in the ‘Gifts of Love’ charity outlet where I am always guaranteed a warm welcome and I may do little bits of shopping afterwards. This I did but I must say that the High Street seemed pretty deserted as I walked along it and the temperature was probably not discernibly lower than yesterdays. So the assistant/volunteer who I know well made an iced coffee for me ad we chatted for half an hour before I went on my way to do some shopping. When I got home, I propped the front day open to allow the breeze to permeate the hall then prepared for myself a prawn omelette with a few salad type accompaniments and this was fine on another roasting hot day. 

My American friend phoned me and we agreed to have a rendez-vous in the park with the multiple purposes of cooling down a little, having a breath of fresh air and catching up on the days news. June’s temperature record has been broken for a third time today, with the mercury hitting 37.1C at Cavendish in Suffolk. There is just a hint that as the day progresses, we might even have a new record later on in the day. The red danger zone issued by the Metrological service has now receded a little from the Midlands. Meanwhile, rai authorities in the South of England are discouraging travellers from making a journey the coast as the railway network cannot cope with these extremely high temperatures. Overhead power lines sag and the rails themselves absorb heat increasing the chance of buckling. Railway tracks reach temperatures much higher than the surrounding air due to a combination of solar radiation, thermal absorption, and insulation. When the air temperature is 30°C, steel rails in direct sunlight routinely climb to 50°C or higher because they act as highly efficient heat traps. They are used to this in continental Europe but it no surprise that we engineer things to a lower standard. The football this evening is going to be France vs. Norway and I would fully expect the French (and Mbappe in particular) to prevail but unpredictable things can happen in a World Cup. Tomorrow  the England team are due to meet Panama and I would not be surprised to see another disappointing and complacent England performance. Even teams from lower-ranked nations (in footballing terms) have to go through qualification matches and it is often forgotten that the players  from some of the lesser-ranked nations are fit young men who might be able to make up in speed and endurance what they may lack in technical skill. The next stage of the competition when there are 32 teams left in become straight knock-out football as the 32 becomes 16, 8, 4 and then 2 in the final. At this stage, many games will end in a penalty shoot-out as well, a skill in which England frequently succumb to the Germans, for example.

Yesterday was dominated by one important visit that I needed to make. Eight years ago I was successfully treated for a polyp in my colon which had turned cancerous but was itself picked up by routine monitoring and subsequently the NHS had offered monitoring of my GI (gastro-intestinal tract) One such monitoring event took place about a month ago and as a result of this the endoscopist has identified another polyp which looked a little suspicious. Yesterday, I saw a colorectal surgeon who explained to me that the offending polyp was not cancerous but the histology (tissue examination) indicated that it might become so in the yeas ahead. So I was offered the option of doing nothing and leaving it to chance or having it removed in a few weeks time. I must have taken little more than half a second for me to choose the latter option and the words of the surgeon were to the effect that I was still a young man but if I chose to ignore it, then I might have problems in later years that I would choose to regret. But I have to say that this is the NHS at its finest i.e. monitoring and treating conditions before they become much more serious. The weather yesterday was the hottest June day ever recorded and I was in two minds whether to cancel the appointment but, in the event, was very pleased that I did not cancel my appointment but instead received the news that I did. The weather forecasters are indicating that it is possible that it is possible that yesterday’s record June temperature may even be exceeded today so we have about a couple of days more of extreme weather through which to navigate ourselves. My Tai Chi has texted each member of her class to take soundings whether or not to hold a class this week, as a result of which the class has been cancelled as I suspect that most of us want to stay safe indoors. My American friend and I decided in a conversation that it was too hot even for an early evening walk in the park as the temperature was still in the 30’s (C) and she also informed me that the Ukrainian lunch time event, normally held on the last Friday of each month, had been cancelled as the Ukrainians themselves did not feel inclined to cook in a hot kitchen and felt that the meal would probably be badly attended in any case. So my friend has decided to come round to my house midday when we can prepare a salad lunch together and keep cool with the assistance of a large fan that I keep in my lounge in the bottom of the house. At her suggestion, I have even located a copy of the Scrabble board game that had hunted out in a trip to a charity shop in the hope, vain as it turned out, that Meg and I would be able to share in this game in her declining few months. Last night’s football turned out to be less than entertaining. After a pedestrian first half, Canada and Switzerland finally made something of a game of it with the Swiss eventually running out as 2:1 winners. I was disinclined to watch the Scotland vs. Brazil game but as I was going to bed in a hot bedroom decided to watch a few minutes of it only to see the Scots make a huge defensive error and give away the softest of goals to their Brazilian opponents within the first five minutes, after which I decided that I would rather sleep than watch the rest of the game.

The hot weather, having  scrubbed out my Tai Chi class this week, left me with the prospect of a nice quiet morning but I decided to make the best of it. The back lawn was in desperate need of a cut and I know this only takes about 20 minutes. So before the sun got too high and whilst the inclination of the sun was such that much of the back garden was shaded by the bushes, I ventured out to give the lawn a mow at 9.30 in the morning when the temperature was a ‘mere’ 25° C. I have never cut the lawns so early in the day before but, there again, we are experiencing record temperatures day by day, I rather expected that work might cease in the building site at the bottom of my garden in view of the extreme heat but the activity and associated noise seems to be just the same.  As I was cleaning up the mower, prior to putting it away, I heard the sound of another lawn mower from a distant neighbour so the same thought must have occurred to both of us. We have been warned to expect some spectacular thunderstorms probably within day and so this was another incentive to get the lawn cut before the downpours begin. A rather macabre thought occurred to me which I will discuss with my American friend when she calls around. If her aged 95 year old mother had been alive as well as Meg with her rapidly declining health then both of us might have been faced with the most difficult time keeping both of them hydrated and cool and it is not beyond the possibilities  that our respective loved ones might have succumbed to the extreme heat and would we have blamed ourselves for it? I have just read the horrifying statistic that in France there have 40 drowning deaths recorded in the last week alone. Whilst we all have to ‘tunnel through’ the current heatwave, the much more pressing questions is how much more we need to invest as a society to counteract the heatwaves of the future which, with rampant global warming are only going to intensify. I would really like  to see our media dragging prominent climate-change deniers in front of the TV cameras and asked to justify their denial claims in the light of all the scientific evidence and the evident distress of millions of us across Europe. Because of its land mass, the heatwave seems to be much worse in France. At least 101 million people in Europe are expected to experience temperatures in excess of 35C on Thursday, including 50 million in France, as an intense heatwave sweeping the continent continues. Spain is reporting an excess of 200 heat-related deaths as well.

It was no surprise to me in the England vs. Ghana football match that this was certainly not going to be a pushover. The Ghana team were superb in their defence and whenever an England player seemed as though they were about to be in a position to shoot for goal, they immediately seem to be surrounded by 4-5 Ghanian shirts. So the England team found that there was literally ‘no way through’ and the traditional tactics of a slow patient buildup remained just that – a buildup with no finish. The commentators  on the match were practically screaming at the English team to play ‘through’ the Ghanaians i.e. run at opponents with the ball. But this can be dangerous because if you lose the ball, a Ghanian opponent can make a quick breakaway to score a goal at the other end of the pitch. The English substitutes did make a little difference and the last ten minutes of play, England attacked quite well and nearly scored but it was a case of too little and too late. Looking at domestic politics, the ‘coronation’ of Andy Burnham looks all but certain but before everyone gets carried away on a wave of emotion, the economic problems surrounding the government severely limit the locus of action of even an incoming Prime Minister.  If we are to look at problems one by one, the most prominent is the under funding of our defence budget but in the very simplest of terms, where is the money to come from? The answer may lie in some imaginative new funding streams such as special ‘Defence Bonds’ as in the second world war but all of this has to be thought through. The Conservative answer is to ‘cut the welfare bill’ and devote the released funds to defence but this is not as easy as it sounds. It is true that that there is a huge problem of NEETS (Not in Education, Employment or Training) There are approximately 1.01 million young people (aged 16 to 24) in the UK who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). This figure equates to 13.5% of all young people in this age group but about 60% of this figure are people who are disabled or otherwise unfit for work. For the remainder, there probably needs to be a joint policy involving government and employers but hard-pressed employers will not do this for nothing  and will require some economic incentives – and this of course, costs and does not save money. The traditional Labour answer  to problems is to borrow the money but here we are at the mercy of the bond markets or, as it is popularly known. ‘the kindness of strangers’ In other words if foreign investors are not convinced of the probity of UK politics, then they will simply not lend the money to us. At the risk of a very simple economic analysis if in times gone past one approached a bank manager  for a loan to buy a car without which it was impossible to get to work, the bank manager might give one a sympathetic reply. But if you wanted to buy a car simply as an enjoyable consumption good, then the same bank manager would probably refuse a loan. I am aware that one should not treat Government economic activity as though it was a huge domestic household but I think it is often not appreciated on the left of politics that that they may not be people in the world who wish to lend to you unless the price in interest payments is extraordinarily high. The total amount the government owes is called the national debt. It is currently about £2.9 trillion. That is almost as much as the value of all the goods and services produced in the UK in a year, known as the gross domestic product, or GDP. The current level is more than double that seen from the 1980s through to the financial crisis of 2008. The combination of the financial crash and the Covid pandemic pushed the UK’s debt up. But, in relation to the size of the economy, UK debt figures are still low compared with much of the last century. They are also less than the equivalent figures for some other leading economies. Even so, just paying the interest on this huge debt costs the economy over 8% of total government expenditure so just borrowing more money may not be the answer. In the meanwhile, the NHS always seems to be desperately short of cash and most of our public services have been starved of investment for decades now so who would want to be in charge  of a government faced with al of these unpalatable choices. The traditional answer is ‘economic growth’ but for decades now the UK economy has seemed to grow if anything by the most miniscule amounts and hence the tax take does not increase by very much. One answer may lie in innovative new forms of taxation. I personally would put a £1 levy on every parcel or package delivered to households in the UK and this would rase A £1 levy on all parcels and packages in the UK would raise between £4.2 billion and £5 billion annually. By way of comparison, increasing the basic rate of income tax by 1p raises approximately £6.9 billion a year.

I went shopping yesterday morning and the supermarket was very crowded but perhaps this is because it was so cool inside – I wonder whether some people had discerned this and so had gone shopping to help to draw the sting of what is proving to be the hottest June day on record. Yesterday was officially the hottest ever June day, breaking the 1976 record. A temperature of 35.7C has been recorded in Charlwood, Surrey, according to the Met Office. This year marks half a century since the 1976 heatwave: a summer when people put foil over windows to keep out the sun and were forced to use standpipes in the street as water supplies ran short.  The UK’s all-time high is 40.3C, recorded in July 2022. I may meet my American friend in the park later on in the evening if we both need feel the need for a bit of fresh air. We have about one more day of really hot weather to negotiate and then things might break down with multiple thunderstorms towards the end of the week. I think a lot of people would really welcome a good thunderstorm and a downpour to help to clear the air after recent days.

The day before yesterday, I was very conscious of the need to keep cool throughout the day – nonetheless, I had made an arrangement to meet my American friend in the park at 5.00pm for a constitutional walk. We texted each other half an hour before, both of us being in a 50:50 state of mind whether to stay in or meet for a walk. We decided  that the fresh air might be good for both of us and so it proved. So we made it to our ‘normal’ park bench which, we have discovered we both used to utilise regularly myself with Meg and my friend with her mother but at slightly different times of the day which is why we never actually met in the park. Nonetheless, this was a remarkable coincidence. As we chatted, we made casual conversation with the inevitable dog walkers and then started to experience a few drops of rain which I did not know was forecast. Eventually though, the rain intensified so we had to seek the shelter of a nearby tree which sheltered a bench underneath it. When I go home, I realised with some dismay that I had a line full of washing outside which had now been rained upon so  had to take it back inside the house wetter than when it was put out. I knew that in World Cup, Argentina were playing Austria so I tuned in for the last 15 minutes. I was glad that I had done so because  I witnessed the second of two  brilliant goals that Lionel Messi scored for Argentina which have now made Messi the most prolific goal scorer in the history of the World Cup. With a hat-trick in the opening game, two goals and the record broken in the second, and a third game against Jordan to come, he is a strong contender for the Golden Boot, awarded to the top goalscorer at the finals – one individual prize he has never won. Messi has now scored in six consecutive World Cup matches, a feat only achieved by two other players – France’s Just Fontaine in 1958 and Brazil’s Jairzinho in 1970. No player has ever scored in seven straight matches. What is remarkable is that success has come late in his career as Messi is now 38 years old and he has scored most of his World Cup goals since turning 30. At the end of the match when winners typically embrace each other in celebration, I noticed that several of the Austrian players also came forward to embrace him as a testament to his remarkable footballing achievement. Later I watched a little of the France vs. Iraq game only to see Mbappe score with an unstoppable shot. Then in a remarkable development, at half time there was a threat of lightning and a thunderstorm so FIFA delayed the start of the second  half for a full two hours before the game resumed. Mbappe added a second goal and Iraq were defeated 3:0. Meanwhile England are preparing for a second match in the competition with Ghana as opponents and I think that this might prove to be quite a tough and very physical match with the outcome in doubt. The political agenda at home is dominated by the resignation of Keir Starmer and the possible ‘coronation’ of Andy Burnham. There are some in the Labour Party who think that in a modern democratic party, there should be a contest for the leadership but I suspect that the majority of Labour MPs just want to see a smooth transition of power and not a summer of political hustings and some inevitable bloodletting. I came across an extremely informative article in todays ‘Times’ written by William Hague, a one time Tory ‘wonder child’ and one team leader of the Tory party. He was arguing that Andy Burnham may prove to be a more effective prime minister if he hadn’t been subject to an electoral process in his own party.  Hague’s argument was. that a policy of which he was an advocate in the past but now regrets, is the giving to members  of the wider political part a say in the election of a new leader. Tory constituency parties are notoriously more right wing than the parliamentary party and, in a mirror fashion, the Labour members are much more left wing. So in order to get elected, candidates are pulled towards either a rightward or a leftwards extreme and we can see. what happened in the case of Liz Truss who was only voted for by 45% of Tory MPs in the final round of voting. So Haigh argues that in any leadership election in which members have a substantial say, we get ultimate winner such as Truss or Corbyn who then adopt policies to fulfil promises made in their election campaign. I always seemed a bit counter-intuitive to me that MPs could be saddled with a leader for whom less than 50% have voted so I think I wold endorse Haigh’s misgivings about this recent trend in the election of leaders (of either Tory or Labour)

I often spend some time in extended chats with our domestic help whose day it was yesterday but I had been up since 7.00am and as part of my daily routine I now water the plants and sweep the patio to keep it clear of the moss (which occasionally drops from the roof and will stain if left) Then I left in the middle of the day for my Pilates class but fortunately found a parking place under the shade of some trees which was just as well as the temperature was 30°C (which is  84° F).  The evening before, I had returned from my little outing to get some fresh air in the park and was subsequently raised upon only to be reminded upon my return to be reminded that  had a line full of washing that was made damp by the rain. I took pains to keep the top of the house cool with several windows open and even a small fan brought into operation half an hour before  went to bed. In the evening, there is the England vs. Ghana match in the World Cup and I am filled with a certain foreboding. Firstly, the English defence is a little suspect and secondly, there is a real contrast in styles here the English prefer a slow, patient build-up whereas the Ghanaian’s seem to have perfected quick lightning strikes after long balls punted up field. Although a lot of English fans are somewhat ‘gung-ho’, I have the feeling that this might be quite a hard fought contest with the outcome by no means certain.

The football story in town yesterday morning was how plucky little Cape Verde islands managed a 2:2 all draw against Uruguay scoring their first every goal in the World Cup and standing a fighting chance of getting beyond the group stage of the competition. Meanwhile here at home, the whole country is gripped by  two huge stories. The first of these is the extreme weather warning as temperatures are due to exceed 38° C (100° F)  across large swathes of the country and this may well persist until about Thursday. Now all of this is serious stuff because temperatures of this size become life threatening. An analysis of the heatwave of last June revealed that there were about 600 ‘excess’ deaths last year and the same metrics will apply this year. 600 deaths is equivalent to two jumbo jets crashing into each other with no survivors and imagine the impact that that would have. Of course, it is the elderly who cannot cope with these extreme temperatures but at the other end of the life cycle, youngsters get tempted to swim whenever they see pools of cold water and despite the warnings, the same might happen this year. Now my American friend and I are keeping an eye on each other and making sure that we both wear appropriate cotton clothing, keep out of the sun and keep ourselves well hydrated for the next few days. The heatwave is even worse across continental Europe with France being particularly badly affected. A significant temperature rise is expected across France from Sunday until at least Tuesday, with around 53.5 million people, or more than three-quarters of the French population, affected by the red and amber warnings on Sunday, according to an AFP count based on population estimates of the departments concerned. Monday could see average temperatures across mainland France reaching their hottest ever, while top temperatures in many areas could peak between 37C and 42C (99F-108F) – levels which in some places would be unprecedented for any month of the year. Apart from the extreme temperature, the other big political story is whether  or not Keir Starmer will resign as Prime Minister later on in the day. Some of his closest advisers are publicly calling upon to go but if he were to stay, he would be a ‘lame duck’ Prime Minister and no significant political decisions may be taken. My own view is that if the Starmer and the Burnham camps were to get together, then a deal might be stitched together whereby Starmer steps down, Burnham takes over but Starmer immediately takes over as Foreign Secretary. Now this would have several advantages for the country as Starmer is so well known from his Prime Ministerial trips abroad that he could, as the say, hit the ground running. Just because this is a sensible thing does not mean that it is going  to happen but there would be several advantages. The role of Foreign Secretary takes the incumbent out of ‘domestic’ politics for a while but the global world is in such turmoil at the moment that the UK could exercise a lot more influence in keeping Starmer in office as Foreign Secretary. He would also enjoy the ‘grace and favour’ weekend home of Dorneywood which might make the transition from No. 10 easier to bear. Much will unfold during  the day but it is a case of watch this space.

After I had done a few little outside jobs such as watering the plants and sweeping the patio, I had an inkling that something might be afoot politically. Sure enough, the cameras had been assembled in mass outside No 10 and soon a lectern was brought out and it was evident that an important political statement was shortly to be made. At about 9.30 Keir Starmer stepped out and then in a brief speech recounted some of the successes of the present Labour government. He then indicated that his soundings amongst the Parliamentary Labour Party was that he was not the right person to lead the party into the next general election and therefore he intended to reign. The speech as a whole was dignified but Starmer got understandably emotional towards the end of it when he acknowledged the support of his wife during his Premiership and they then embraced. The 9th July was then indicated as the opening date for the nominations for a successor. If no-one seeks a nomination other than Andy Burnham then he will become the next prime Minister before the end of July. If other people do nominate themselves  there will be an election process and the result will not be announced before September. Wes Streeting, a potential contender, has already indicated that he would not put himself forward against an Andy Burnham and so other challengers are unlikely. Although some may complain about the absence of a democratic process, a smooth transition of power is probably in the best interests of the country. The point is being made, though, that we are on course for our seventh Prime Minister in ten years and so the traditional UK reputation for political stability is being shredded. One explanation that I have heard put forward is that MPs themselves and public egged on by the media and especially social media have generated a climate in which instant results  are expected.  But policies have to be worked out,  put into legislation, implemented and then given time to work and so change can take years and not months. There is quite a lot to the argument that we have as a nation grown to expect instant results but frequent changes of the Prime Minister are not necessarily the best way ahead. After this breaking news, I went down into town by car to pick up a newspaper and then when I got back, I had a long chat with my next-door neighbour. Although it was hot outside, it was a little  breezy and the front lawn looked badly in need of a cut. So I took the ‘brave decision to get it cut before the temperature rose to an intolerable, not to mention unsafe, level and whilst  there was still quite a pleasant breeze. So I go this job pulled in before lunch after which I had a doze and then a salad lunch. I got a load of washing out to dry in the hot sunshine and then settled down for a cool afternoon, making sure I was taking plenty of cold drinks on board.

Last night’s World Cup football proved to be exceptionally entertaining. In the first match that I watched, Netherlands vs. Sweden, the Dutch put the ball into the net five times to win the match 5:1. It may have been that in their previous match they had been a little tentative and their coach had evidently given them new instructions. In their match, they frequently got the ball to the byline and then made a fast pass across the mouth of the goal with which the Dutch strikers  frequently intercepted. In the case of the first goal. the striker hit the ball with such force and was coming forward with such momentum that he himself finished up in the back of the net as well. So this match, as you might imagine from the scoreline was incredibly entertaining – if I popped out of the room for a moment, the Dutch seemed to have scored. The second match was equally entertaining but it was in a different way. It was Germany v. Cote d’Ivoire who are actually one of the leading teams in Africa. The Ivorians scored first and maintained their lead for most of the match and seemed to be heading for a win when Germany equalised late in the second half. At this stage, it appeared that the match was heading for a well-earned draw but then Germany, in a superb goad, blasted home a winner two minutes before  the end of the extra time added onto the second half of the game and thus ran out as 2:1 winners. My sympathies lay with the African team and it was a cruel twist of bad luck for them that they were defeated at the very end like  this. There is a massive controversy behind the innovation of hydration breaks half way through each half because the flow and momentum of the game is definitely disturbed, coaches run on to give mire detailed instructions and a score often takes place immediately after the break. We have noticed something similar in cricket as after having had tea, the concentration of the batsmen has to be re-built and they often succumb immediately after a tea interval (or a break for rain for that matter. The domestic news is rife with speculation as to whether Keir Starmer after a cabinet meeting will announce a date for his retirement and a ‘de facto’ handover to Andy Burnham who has just secured his seat in the House of Commons after a thrashing of the Reform party. Although it is just speculation at this point, the odds seem to lie heavily with Keir Starmer announcing a date for his departure thus leading to an orderly transition of power. Andy Burnham will become prime minister as the herd is ‘not just moving’ against Sir Keir Starmer ‘it is stampeding’, Harriet Harman told Sky News. Speaking to Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast following Burnham’s win in the Makerfield by-election, she said: ‘Well, I hate to quote Boris Johnson, but do you remember what he said, when he realised that he had to leave government? And he said about his ministers and his MPs, the herd is moving. Well, I have to say that it is not only that the herd is moving, they are stampeding.’ In the morning, I had been asked by my Italian friend if she could accompany me to the 8.30 church service so I have arranged to give he a lift. Now that she has decided to stay where she has lived for over thirty years, I suspect that she is very keen (as was I) to build upon and sustain her social contacts and going o church and having tea and coffee in the parochial hall after the service is one way of doing this. I particularly look forward  to this little social gathering because one meets  people of a whole variety of ages whereas the U3A activities are evidently dominated by the retired.  After set the alarm first thing in-the morning, and them dozed off again, I made sure that I had switched the slow cooker on to cook my gammon and after my new found knowledge of yesterday I had already prepared a potato which had been cubed and was sitting in as jug of cold water in the fridge, ready for lunch later in the day with my American friend. She was reading the lesson at her Methodist church this morning and had given me a phone call to check on the pronunciation of ‘Beelzebub’ (a name given to the devil) Beelzebub is a name for the chief devil or Satan. Originating from ancient Philistine texts, it translates to ‘Lord of the Flies.’ In literature and theology, it represents a high-ranking fallen angel or a symbol of chaos, corruption, and the embodiment of evil. But some Jewish texts have given the name as ‘Beelzebul’ and so the name is translated in some versions of the Bible (but not the King James version)

Later on in the morning, my American friend came round and although  I ad got some of the elements of the dinner prepared, I needed the sprouts and the broccoli to complete the veg. I had already roasted a gammon joint in the slow cooker but I finished it off with a good dollop of thick honey smeared on the outside and finished off in the oven together with the Yorkshire puddings. So it turned out to be quite a large but a very satisfying meal. After the meal, we entertained ourselves by watching a succession of Rowan Atkinson monologues, of which ‘The Devil’ is one of my favourites. One of the most excruciatingly funny is the monologue of the headmaster of a private school explaining to a parent how his son had been beaten to death because he had been taking out library books  without permission. Another series that most doubt might ring many chords is the story of the best man, followed by the bride’s father. Following a light supper of cheese and biscuits we decided to put on an opera video of Rigoletto (Verdi) but we thought we would split our viewing into two halves with one half this evening and the second half next weekend. Next Friday  is our Ukrainian meal day which is held on the last Friday of every month and which we really enjoyed on the last occasion. I am going to take my Italian friend down there and my American friend, although she will be doing some serving out, will probably be able to join us for a few minutes as well.

As we awoke yesterday morning, it was to the developing news of a train crash in Bedfordshire where the driver was killed and some 100 people injured. It appeared that one train was stationery as a result of the automatic warning system and the other train crashed into the back of it. The last deadly crash occurred in October 2024 in mid-Wales, killing one passenger and seriously injuring four. Before that, a fatal crash involving two trains had not taken place in Britain for more than 25 years. So this indicates how are a tragic accident of this type is on Britain’s rail network. The authorities will be desperately hunting for clues as the cause which always narrows down to either a systems failure or human error (and of course it could be both) In the morning, I awoke to a gloomy day where it had rained during the night. Having woken up at about 5.30 I promptly went back to sleep again for a solid three hours so yesterday’s little  ventures out and even the slow car journey back might have been somewhat more tiring than I thought at the time. In the evening before last, I was inclined to watch the Australia vs. USA match but once the Americans were two goals ahead, I lost interest and did not follow the rest of the match. Scotland were playing Morocco (late ) and conceded a goal when the match was only 70 seconds old from which they never recovered and lost the match 1:0. They will probably not proceed as they wished out of the group stage as they need to secure a very unlikely draw against Brazil in a forthcoming match. Now that we have approached the weekend, I have a quiet and ‘tidying up’ day in prospect but I am pleased to say that my patio now looks tremendously good after a shower of rain which makes the pastel colours in the slabs almost glow. For the price, I think I will have this patio cleaned up as an annual event as the eye is drawn to it and not necessarily to the overgrown nature of the rest of the garden which needs quite a radical pruning back after a year or so of relative neglect.  I know we all like some sunny weather in June but you can have too much of a good thing. An extreme heat warning is in force for early next week as a high-humidity heatwave builds to a peak that could see temperatures top 34C (93F). The Met Office says the low 30s are likely in southern England on Sunday, before the heat is expected to ‘expand and intensify’ on Monday and Tuesday. Humidity is set to be higher than last month’s heatwave and the ‘tropical night’ threshold – where temperatures do not fall below 20C (68F) – will be met in some areas. So as one is at certain age, temperatures of this magnitude cannot be treated lightly so it is a case of keeping well hydrated and not venturing outdoors with  good cause. 

Later in the morning, I collected a copy of my daily newspaper and them sauntered along the High Street anticipating a coffee and a chat in my usual venue in the ‘Gifts of Love’ charity shop outlet but was disappointed to find that it was closed for the day. On the way back, I popped into the Salvation Army charity shop and bought a copy of Dr. Gillian McKeith’s book ‘You are what you Eat’ This was first published in 2004 and claimed to have sold a million copies but I wonder whether, when I dip into it, the advice it contains is still current more than twenty years later. On dietary matters, I did locate, read and then download a very interesting and scientifically well informed paper on how to reduce the starch element and thus glycaemic load of potatoes. The clue, apparently, is to soak the potato well in water overnight, then cook it in a lot of water preferably from cold and then let it cool down when a lot (but not all) of the starch load will have been released into the surrounding boiling water. I pt this into practice by boiling a cubed potato for my lunch which I then let cool. For my lunch. I had an extremely ‘healthy’ half tin of salmon, a broccoli-tomato-onion salad made palatable with a good dowsing of honey and mustard sauce and the now cooled potato. After lunch, I started to watch a war film which was ‘Battle of Britain’ which was so exciting I could not tear myself away from it. Evidently, the action documented the  dog fights between the RAF (and allied squadrons of Poles, Canadians and others) The film was made in 1969, deployed the best of British acting talent such as Lawrence Olivier and was filled full of spectacular flying sequences. Although the film is well worth a watch, apparently it was a box office flop as anti-war sentiment was at its height as the Vietnam war was being brought to its conclusion and the budget for it to be made must have been spectacular. I did not fully appreciate that the initial attacks of the Luftwaffe were on British air fields in the South of England where the intention was to destroy as many of the English aircraft on the ground as well as degrading the airfield facilities. Moving away from my TV viewing, I have just read a press release from ‘The Guardian’ which has documented the fact that Brexit voting areas had a faster relative growth n foreign workers than ‘Leave’ voting areas which is not what the Brexiteers thought they were voting for. I also read a book review in today’s ‘Times‘ which brought together a collection of essays on the effects of Brexit some 10 years after the vote. According to the most definitive and authoritative studies that have been conducted to date, the UK economy has suffered a hit of between 6%-8% which explains why the ardent Brexiteers are so silent on this subject now. In other words, all of the deleterious consequences that the Leave campaign predicted have actually come about and, in the fullness of time, it will be appreciated what a disastrous mistake leaving the EU will prove to be. The early  football match this evening is Netherlands vs Sweden so I think this will be fascinating match to watch. I will be supporting the Dutch but the have a reputation for being a little individualistic which may not serve them well.