The day before yesterday dawned without a cloud in the sky and I wondered whether this presaged the start of another really hot day. But the local weather forecast is predicting a high of 31° and perhaps some slight breezes which will make the weather a bit more bearable. For the record, though, when I visited town the day before and then returned to my car which had been in the sunny part of the car park for some two hours, the internal temperature of the car registered at 50° and the steering wheel, despite being a sort of rigid foam, was too hot to handle. The news was ominated throughout the day with the reports of the very right wing politician, Anne Widdicombe, who was reported to have died at the age of 78 after her retirement to a village on the edge of Dartmoor. But the news of her death was soon replaced by the news that she had had actually been murdered and the police were looking for a 26 year white male suspect. This news was given out by the local police in a news conference and the ‘white male’ had been apprehended and arrested not many miles from the scene of the murder. But in the morning came the news that, after questioning, the police had released this suspect and he was no longer under any investigation. So the manhunt continues for the actual killer or killers and no doubt the media will be be in a frenzy on this subject throughout the day. Ann Widdicombe was what might be considered as an extreme conviction politician and her hard right views meant she left the Conservative party and, via UKIP, and the Brexit party ended up in Reform even becoming a Reform MEP before the country left the EC. One story that is told about her and is widely believed is that she condoned the use of shackles on pregnant women in gaol to prevent their escape and condoned the use of these shackles on female prisoners. But the Daily Mirror published a fulsome apology indicating that they were wrong in publishing a story about Widdicombe’s advocacy of shackles whilst women were giving birth but the story is still widely believed, although it is probably apocryphal. She converted to Catholicism (to the dismay of most liberal Catholics) and fiercely denounced any part of the liberal consensus such as gay rights or any extension to the abortion laws. The tributes have poured in for her from across the political spectrum and she now joins the list of politicians who have been murdered in recent years (Jo Cox from Labour, David Amess from the Conservatives). The massive question that remains for the police is to determine whether the murder is a ‘normal’ one (an old lady robbed for her presumed possessions) of whether her murder is for political motives. The past murder of politicians seems to have been associated by individuals with a mental illness or personality disorder but of course, in this case, we shall just have to wait and see. Now that a suspect as been apprehended and then released, a lot of valuable time may well have been lost allowing any potential suspect to travel a long way away or even change their appearance. Yesterday was carnival day in Bromsgrove which is a day to which I do not look forward. The evening before my American friend were thwarted in our attempts to have a quiet walk in the park as the entrance and access roads were all coned off but my friend and I had a walk in the cool of the nearby cemetery which has plenty of tall trees to keep us cool. We have decided to spend the day together keeping cool and preparing our meals together – in fact anything to avoid the crowds of carnival day and the persistent heat. Later in the day, there is the much anticipated England vs. Norway football match which we will watch together having already seen Spain defeat Belgium 2:0 in their quarter finals match.
In the late morning my American friend called around and we found a cool spot at the back of the house where we could enjoy some cool drinks. I had rescued a couple of so-called directors’ chairs from the inner reaches of our garage and then taken them into the garden for a brush down. Then we started to think about preparing some lunch together and whilst I cooked the salmon in a special ridged grilling pan that I have (the ridges prevent burning and sticking) my friend prepared the salad elements of the meal. Whilst I was on the road yesterday, I had purchased a special little green bottle which proved ideal for making a French dressing from balsamic Vinegar and a high grade olive oil. The meal turned out to be delicious and the salmon was some of the best I have ever tasted but we deployed a little honey and mustard on part of the salmon and Thousand Island dressing on other part. The whole meal was complemented with a bottle of Asti Spumante and it was an almost perfect accompaniment to the rest of the meal. I read on Sky News during the day that day will briefly turn into night for parts of Europe next month as the continent experiences its first solar eclipse in nearly three decades. The rare celestial event on Wednesday 12 August will see the moon pass directly between the Earth and the sun, briefly plunging people in parts of Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, Spain and a small corner of Portugal into darkness, according to NASA. The UK will only experience a partial solar eclipse, but it is still set to cover the vast majority of our view of the sun. It is going to be the first total solar eclipse visible from Europe since 1999, when one could be seen from most of Cornwall and Devon. This time the UK and Ireland will lose sight of around 90% of the sun rather than all of it. So this event is about one month away and will be well worth a witnessing of it. This has to be done indirectly and NASA are giving the advice to use indirect viewing methods, such as projecting the sun’s image through a pinhole camera, a colander, or the gaps between tree leaves, without ever looking at the sun directly. I am not quite sure how you view an eclipse through a colander but presumably when the event draws near, we shall receive much more relevant and practical advice but, of course, one never has to look at the sun directly. A 90% partial solar eclipse is not equivalent to night-time darkness but the ambient light will dim to resemble a slightly overcast day or the lighting about 30 minutes before sunset. The sky will still be bright, but you will notice a strange silvery twilight, crisper shadows, and potentially a slight drop in temperature. Even with 90% of the Sun covered, the remaining 10% is still thousands of times brighter than a full moon, making the change much less dramatic than a total eclipse. The whole nation seems to be counting down the hours until 10.00pm which is the scheduled start time for the England vs. Norway quarter final which I am pretty convinced the Norwegians will win.