I was not joined in the park on the evening before last but nonetheless felt the need to go out and get some fresh air. So I went to our local park to enjoy some cooling breezes and sat on the favourite bench which Meg and I used to occupy nearly every day in our trips to the park. In her last year, she used to be pushed in her wheelchair but before that our respite on this particular bench was a daily occurrence. It is quite a strange thought to look or over the vista of the park and to know that Meg was seeing almost exactly the same thing. As I have mentioned before, by an extraordinary twist of fate, my American friend and her mother used to occupy the same seat but at different times of the day which is why our paths dd not cross in that time period. Yesterday, I received one of those particularly  welcome emails from a distant cousin asking whether we might meet later in the month, to which  have enthusiastically responded. Actually, the cousin is not very distant but the grand daughter of Meg’s uncle Teddy  and Meg and I as university students were asked to be god-parents to her at her christening in about 1968. She has now retired as a teacher and lives in Bolton but Meg and I managed to see her and her mother (an opera singer no less!) on at least a couple  of occasions. We have agreed to meet in an RHS garden centre in Bridgewater which is almost just down the road for us. I explained that my son and daughter-in-law were on holiday but I am sure would love to make the acquaintance of some distant cousins who they have never actually met but I am sure will make a very joyous family occasion. Being an ‘only one’ and born when Meg’s parents were in their 40’s, these cousins are probably the last of Meg’s surviving cousins but they are a delightful family and now that we are all retired, I am sure we can see a lot more of each other. Very unfortunately, they did not manage to attend Meg’s funeral a year ago as it had been a long scheduled ‘hand-over’ date for my cousin’s husband on the occasion of his own retirement but I have a spare ‘Order of Service’ I can take for them. In the meanwhile I have Tai Chi to which to look forward this morning and a Curry Club dinner in the early  evening. One little item of news which attracted my attention was the official pardon granted to Ruth Ellis who was the last women to be hanged in 1955. She shot her partner but nowadays would be recognised as a victim of domestic abuse (she had been hit so hard in the stomach that she suffered a miscarriage). The death penalty was the only available at the time for murder but even the judge in her trial pleaded for clemency but he was ignored. Technically speaking, Ruth Ellis’s crime has not been pardoned but the sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment and although 71 years after the event may bring a smidgeon of solace to her surviving relatives. Most people will never have heard of Ruth Ellis but her case was very widely reported at the time.

In have just read I todays ‘Sky News‘ that the Inland revenue has admitted that it may have over-taxed 1.4 million pensioners with an error in the way that the state pension was calculated. But before we all throw up in hands in glee, the amounts are question are miniscule ` about £1.74 a year for three years – so in the fullness of time, we might expect a refund of £5 in total. They will probably just adjust our tax codes  so that they do not have to reimburse any real money as well. My American friend and I have been in communication to work out a joint strategy how we are simultaneously going to avoid the heat, watch the football and enjoy ourselves over the next few days. Tomorrow, we are doing our best to keep out of the sun (even more important for my friend as she is fair-skinned) but we are going to meet in the park tomorrow, spend the day together in my house or garden on Saturday where we hunt out cool spots and/or use my big fan where it is cool, go to Solihull on Sunday to get a new TV bought from John Lewis in the morning and then go to a (free) recorder concert in the afternoon in the local parish church, and finally get he car serviced on Monday. I suspect that the hot spell may well last for at bast the best part of another week after which we could all do with some torrential thunderstorms. The more I think about it, the more relieved I am that Meg did not have to live through this terribly hot spell which I think she would not have survived (and the same goes for very aged mother of my American friend) In the evening, it just happens to be the designated night for our ‘Curry Club’ monthly venture but it is not the best of evenings in which to consume a hot curry! We have the football later on in the evening between France and Morocco which a repeat of a similar match held at the same stage in the competition in the last Word Cup. But  I was astonished to discover that the match is to be referred by a panel of five Argentinian judges and Argentina have a vested interest in ensuring that France does not reach the finals and pose a great threat to Argentina. With the late VAR decisions in the Argentina v. Egypt match in which the Egyptians had a goal disallowed because of a rough-and-tumble contact some 17 seconds before the goal was scored, there are some voices arguing that FIFA and the inappropriate utilisation of VAR technology are being used to determine the outcome of some matches. Now that Trump has demonstrated how pliable FIFA can be when subject to political pressure, it perhaps comes as no surprise that conspiracy theories and shouts of ‘fix’ are starting to arise. I saw a very well argued presentation on YouTube not arguing ‘fix’ as such but indicating that using VAR for situations in which it was never intended was actually subverting and not enhancing the game.

The evening before last, I went for a walk with my American friend in the park not meeting until 7.15 to watch the end of the football. At this stage of the day, there are some wonderful refreshing breezes in the park and it makes for a very relaxing end to the day. Although on the notice board it states that the closing time is 8.00pm in the summer, we both left at 8.15 and there seemed to be a fair number of both cars and people around so how the actual closing time operates is a bit of a mystery. The World Cup is getting to the exciting closing stages at the moment. I was watching the Argentina vs. Egypt and about ten minutes before the end of the match, Eygpt seemed to be point of eliminating Argentina, the world champions. But then Argentina pulled off one the  most astonishing come-backs of all time by scoring three goals in eleven minutes and it looked as though Messi, who had not had a particularly good game, saved his best until the last. Egypt felt they had been unfairly robbed of a goal as a VAR review in the build up to the goal showed a foul but whether this had any real impact upon the scoring of the goal will be argued about for a long, long time. VAR is proving very useful for some decisions but is creating other problems in its strict interpretation. So we are left in a situation wit six European teams, plus Argentina and Morocco left in the quarter finals. I would be amazed if England gets past Norway as they may be called upon to repeat their heroics of their win against Mexico recently. Turning away from football, the domestic political scene is producing dramas of its own. Nigel Farage has announced his intention to resign as an MP and to fight a by-election to attempt to regain some political credibility. But all of the major political parties are refusing to participate in this ‘game’. The fallout from Nigel Farage’s decision to call a by-election in his seat continues. The decision from the Reform UK leader is being described by some as a farce, as all the major parties are refusing to stand a candidate against him in Clacton. Labour has branded the vote a circus, the Tories said it was fake, the Lib Dems deemed it a stunt, and the Greens called it desperate. Farage has offered to pay for the election, but the suggestion has been rejected as unworkable. Due to archaic procedures in parliament, it is technically impossible for an MP to resign their role unless they are given permission by the Treasury. So far it is not clear whether this has been granted to Farage, or even if he has formally applied. So we are very much in uncharted territory as it appears that if the by-election does go ahead, Farage will secure his victory only against joke candidates and his credibility will be damaged and not enhanced. At this point of time, Farage as not actually relinquished his seat and therefore Parliamentary enquiries into his past funding will continue. Parliament will go into a summer recess shortly and we are entering what in politics is sometimes called the ‘silly season’ so we shall able to wait and see how these antics unfold in the coming days. One thing that emerged, to the amusement and much merriment of the media circus, as that Nigel Farage is liable to have at least one challenger in the by-election which he has triggered by resigning, hoping to evade parliamentary scrutiny of his finances. It is a feature of by- elections in the UK that often joke candidates enter the contest because  they know that they will be afforded a certain amount of publicity in the interests of fairness. One such candidate goes by the name of ‘Count Binface’ and he dresses up as a black waste disposal bin. So, it looks as though Nigel Farage may spend the summer campaigning against a black dustbin and, it is not inconceivable that disgruntled Labour, Liberal  and Green inclined voters might lend him their votes in order to defeat Farage. If this were to happen (unlikely, but not impossible)then Farage would lose all credibility and his political career would effectively be over. Mr Farage looks almost certain to win. But if another candidate, such as Count Binface, does surprisingly well in the absence of the main parties it could be another blow to the Reform leader. There were already reports of donations being offered for the Binface campaign. Polling expert and Tory peer Lord Hayward told a newspaper ‘It could be a triple embarrassment. First the major parties not standing. Second and most crucially the turnout because Farage has to show that a large number of Clacton voters still support him. And third how well candidates like Count Binface actually do’

The day has been a quiet day only punctuated by weekly shopping in the middle of the day. But the afternoon has been incredibly hot and I just ventured out to pull out some really tall weeds ready for disposal in the brown-lidded bin tomorrow morning. Then I devoted some of the afternoon  by going through some past copies of ‘The Times’ to extract useful clippings before the newspapers get collected tomorrow morning. There are some reports from a NATO summit held in Ankara that  Donald Trump’s hold on reality may be slipping quite badly in public. At one point, in a rambling and meandering speech he appeared  to confuse the Ukrainian president with Vladimir Putin and on another occasion referred to the Islamic Republic of Japan (rather than Iran) These verbal gaffes are becoming more frequent and those close to him must be aware this mental powers are diminishing. He has even threatened to take over Greenland again (a sovereign territory, administered by Denmark and part of NATO) but may even have forgotten in the afternoon  that he said this in the morning. We have no football to divert us this evening and so await the start of the quarter finals over the forthcoming weekend. France is almost certain to be one of the finalists but the other could be one of Spain, England, Norway or Belgium. I would put my money on a France v. Spain final but football matches can sometimes be decided by the cruellest twist of fate or even a disputed VAR decision.  This weekend is going to be the town fête and I think my American friend and I will discuss some strategies for keeping well out of the way of the crowds if that is possible. Certainly, the children will enjoy it on their floats but the traffic flows throughout the town are severely disrupted as roads are closed off and the normal rhythms  of life disrupted.

Well, I caught up on a little bit on sleep last night but not enough to eliminate the deficit. Yesterday morning, I was particularly  pleased to see that Belgium had knocked USA comprehensively out of the World Cup as the US goalkeeper made a terrible and simple error in letting in a Belgian goal. After the controversy over the reinstatement of the USA player, suspended after the issue of a red card but allowed back to play after a Trump intervention, this was surely a just result. We are not yet at the stage where the last eight have been fully determined but European teams dominate the later stages of the competition. I would be amazed if France did not turn out to the ultimate winners as their football has been beautiful to watch and ruthlessly efficient at the same time. Soon, I say to myself, the World Cup will be over and we can return to a more normal existence in the evenings. My American friend and I are taking the opportunity to meet in the local park at about 6.00pm most evenings and, at this time of day, there is often a cooling breeze and we do a couple of circuits walking around the lake, chatting with each other and with the dog walkers who are in a similar relaxed frame of mind. Later on today, we have to acclimatise ourselves to another heatwave, but it appears, by all accounts, to be somewhat less extreme than a week or so ago and this time we are all well prepared for it. I have consulted the long range weather forecasts and it does appear that this time around the temperatures will not be quite so excessive but may well last for longer and a figure of 10 days is being quoted. France has recorded over 2,000 ‘excess’ deaths attributable to the hot spell and whilst these extreme weathers may not actually be killing the elderly population as such it is probably accelerating their days by some weeks or months. There are also some reports that the heatwave affecting the US may well impact upon the later stages of the World Cup as well and, despite the mandatory hydration breaks taken half way through each half, the games are liable to be played at such a pace that collapse through heat exhaustion is quite possible. Although my weekly session of Pilates beckons at midday, the actual studio is air conditioned so this should not be a source of stress for us. On the domestic political  front, the Reform leader Nigel Farage is coming increasing scrutiny for the donations he has received from crypto-currency billionaires, one of them domiciled in Thailand. He is currently under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards so we shall not hear anything  for several  days or even weeks. Bit I was perturbed to listen to a ‘vox pop’ interview with members of the public who when told of Nigel Farage’s ‘transgressions’ (if such they prove to be) was of the opinion that ‘they were all at it’ and this means that the whole process of political debate and discourse is threatened, if not debased, if the public are convinced that all integrity is being lost from public life. We seem to think that in the UK that politics is not as ‘dirty’ as in other nations but I do get the impressions that standards of integrity are constantly being loosened over the years. Part of the problem is that the amount of money sloshing around the world’s financial system means that many of the political leaders can be bought off quite easily as the power and influence of the huge and largely American corporations  gives them an income which surpasses most of the national income of the countries of the United Nations.

So I attended my Pilates session which is part of my weekly routine and we spent quite a lot of our session discussing my recent experiences of the traffic jam on the M5 at the end of last week, We are well used to traffic jams on the M5 and in particular on a Friday  and as there is not a clear alternative route running down the west of England and hold ups on this road are quite a common occurrence particularly on a Friday (which is day when many are going to/returning from a holiday in the West country) After I returned home I made myself a mackerel salad having  many of the necessary ingredients to hand. There was some domestic political news breaking in the afternoon as Nigel Farage has announced his intention to resign as an MP and to seek reelection from the voters of Clacton (96% white and quite impoverished so natural UKIP/Reform territory) Nigel Farage is the subject of at least two Parliamentary enquiries that he was the recipient of large amounts of money that he failed to declare. Farage argues that these monies were a ‘gift’ before he came an MP and were designed to offer him a degree of personal protection from the constant threats made against him but the Parliamentary rules are clear that donations made before one becomes an MP that threaten the integrity of the political process should be declared. But it could be that that there are even more allegations and enquiries concerning these donations which amount to millions of pounds. Farage’s claims to be the most persecuted politician in the UK hardly stack up when two MPs (Labour’s Jo Cox and the Conservative Sir David Amess ) have actually been murdered as a result of their parliamentary activities. Being hit by a custard pie whilst campaigning does not stack up against actually being murdered but, not for the first time, Farage is guilty of hype. He is claiming that he is being ‘stitched up’ by the political establishment but he is engaging in the most enormous political gamble to attempt to redress the political agenda but this whole attempt could well backfire leaving him in a most humiliating position. Farage is banking upon the fact that he will win ‘in the court of public opinion’ but what the good voters of Clacton will think about their MP and his antics remains to be seen. Certainly the vast amounts of money sloshing around Farage and the Reform party now present plenty of opportunities for his opponents in a by-election to have ready made ammunition to fire against him. It is too early to say at this stage whether the opposition parties might coalesce around one figure opposing Farage but a Conservative candidate might be the obvious choice with other parties (such as Labour) scarcely bothering to campaign

The morning before last was when England were scheduled to play Mexico in the fabulous Asteca stadium in Mexico City in the football World Cup. I thought that this was a match that England were destined to lose as they were playing in the rarified atmosphere of Mexico City at a height greater than Ben Nevis against essentially a team playing on their home ground  who had hardly ever been beaten in this stadium. In fact the record of Mexico i this stadium is only two losses in the last 89 games so the statistical odds were greatly stacked against England. I had not intended to watch the match but this intention changed in the course of the night. After I had gone to bed knowing that  had an early start the next morning, I woke up in the middle of the night just at the point where the English striker, Jude Bellingham (from Stourbridge i.e. almost a local lad) had scored two goals with only a gap of 97 seconds between them. So England were leading 2:0 only for the Mexicans to pull back a goal going into half time at 2:1. At this point, I was wide awake and was sufficiently excited to watch the second half of the match which was pulsating. England were awarded a penalty from which Harry Kane scored  and at that point England seemed to have victory assured with a 3:1 scoreline. But then after a controversial VAR decision, England had a penalty awarded against them and worst was to follow when an English player was shown the red card. i.e. sent off for a reckless challenge whilst defending the goal. So the game became massively more challenging England were down to 10 men and defending a 3:2 lead. The Mexicans launched wave upon wave of attack upon the English goal for what was about the last 36 minutes of the game which by some inspired substitutions the England team managed to repel. Then thee was an unbearable 11 minutes of extra time added which became more than 12 minutes and the England team fight the game of their lives to grimly hand on and to secure a victory against Mexico very much against the odds. The England team played better than at any other time in the tournament and each player excelled themselves with one of the most exciting, and noteworthy England football performances of all time. Mexico’s pure footballing strength can be debated, but given all the complications in the buildup around the altitude, the kickoff time, the weather and the furore outside the team hotel, Sunday’s triumph has to rank as one of England’s finest tournament victories away from Wembley. This was only Mexico’s third home defeat in 90 matches, and England did it playing with 10 men for 36 minutes. England won the World Cup in 1966 and reached the final of Euro 2020, but both tournaments were at home. Notable past wins include beating Argentina in Japan in 2002, Croatia 4-2 in 2004 and Netherlands 2-1 in the Euro 2024 semifinals, but nowhere have they faced an atmosphere quite as hostile as this. If England can rouse themselves in the quarter finals, their opponents will be Norway who have reached their position by defeating Brazil 3:0. So against my better intentions, I only had a couple of hours of sleep because of the football but owing to the significant victory, I am actually  pleased to have witnessed this in real time. One question has been raised about the VAR officials who were all from Latin American countries and the question is raised whether their integrity may have been compromised in a game as significant as this one. The penalty award awarded to England was a clear cut penalty but the one awarded against them was much more questionable as Harry Kane’s outstretched foot was reaching for the ball when contact was made with the foot of an opposing player.

Despite my lack of sleep, I got on the road just after 7.45 and was able to deliver the car ready for its service just before  8.15 – by getting it in at the front of the queue, I am hopeful that the service might be completed by 11.30 or so. I walked down to the nearby Morrison’s supermarket and then availed myself of one of their cooked breakfasts, eating all of the protein elements but avoiding the toast. I had picked up a copy of the newspaper on the way and so after my breakfast, I engaged in solving a ‘Fiendish’ Soduku which, of course, helps to pass the time. Then, upon successfully completing this, I made a slow and deliberate peregrination of the store looking at some of the hardware and clothing elements and making a note of some of the things that I might but in the future. I was tempted into one purchase, however, which was a Morrison’s own brand rechargeable electric toothbrush which I bought for £15.00. Then I sat outside in the sunshine reading my newspaper and was delighted to get a call from the garage that m car was ready cor collection at just about 11.30 as they had promised. When  got home I had a little doze and then made myself a salad  which was quite sufficient for me after the large cooked breakfast. A massive footballing controversy has erupted this morning and one that seems quite unprecedented. In advance of the USA v Belgium played to be played very late tonight, one of the star American players who had been issued with a red card and was therefore suspended for one game, was reinstated. It has emerged that Donald Trump telephoned the head of FIFA ‘requesting’ (i.e. demanding) a review which was granted and the red card although not rescinded is put on probation for a year, releasing Badogun the American star players from tonight’s match. The rest of the footballing world in general, and UEFA in particular, are outraged because this is blatant and transparent political influence with the intention of aiding (or not handicapping) the USA team. Some commentators are already making the point that the USA team can  only be damaged by such shenanigans for if the lose, they lose but were they to win this would be seen as the direct result of cheating and unfair political influence. One could only wish that the entire Belgium team be led off the pitch if the ‘suspended’ player is allowed to play and that every other opposing team would the same. A wise American manager might decide it would be the USA’s best interests and the sport as a whole that the suspended player not be picked for selection for today’s match but we shall have to wait and see what transpires.

So on July 4th, ‘Independence Day’ for America Washington DC awoke to a racist group, the Patriotic Front, marching through the capital city waving confederate flags, celebrating their ‘whiteness’ and spreading a message of hate. Evidently, this march had not been banned by the Trump regime, but it was an ugly reminder of the depth of the polarisation of the American political system. The marchers all had their faces hidden behind a white cotton mask to avoid identification. The group appeared to be led by Thomas Rousseau, founder of the neo-fascist, white supremacist organisation Patriot Front. Members of the group wore white masks and gathered in front of DC’s Union Station. They later marched towards Capitol Hill as members chanted ‘Life, liberty, victory!’ and ‘Reclaim America!’ during the Saturday demonstration. Masked members were filmed riding the Metro as other riders looked on warily. The day before yesterday was a type of ‘Rugby fest’ and I saw the best part of three matches. In one of them, Wales got the better of Fiji which is now mean feat these days whilst Scotland overhauled Argentina. But the England team were very clearly outplayed by the South Africans in a game played in Johannesburg. The evening before last also showed the France vs. Paraguay match. The first half of tis turned out to be predictable with a very stout and well organised defence by Paraguay resisting all of the French attacks. The second  half turned a little ugly though as the Paraguay team turned to some quite cynical fouls none of which were picked up by the referee in one of the least competent episodes of refereeing ever seen in the World Cup. France were awarded a penalty after a review (although the referee, predictably, failed to spot it at first) and so France went on to a well deserved 1:0 victory and will then meet Morocco who had knocked out on of the co-hosts, Canada, earlier in the day. Meanwhile, the England match against Mexico remains scheduled at 1.00am in the morning but I do not intend to watch it and I cannot even watch the full reply being transmitted early the next morning as I have to take the car in for a service and the car has been promised to the garage by about 8.15 early in the morning. We have the Brazil vs. Norway match to which to look forward tonight with some pundits even believing that Norway might eventually prevail if the game runs to penalties after extra time. Meanwhile, later in the day I will be preparing a simple ‘meat and two veg’ for my American friend and I and we may well round this off with a post-prandial walk in the park. Although we normally enjoy a bottle of wine at the weekend, we might give this a miss as we both wish to keep  our blood sugar levels in the normal range – sweet wines, beer, cider, and sugary mixers are high in carbs and sugars, which cause an immediate spike in blood glucose. There is a band scheduled to play at 2.0pm in the afternoon but we will still be lunching at that time. The week ahead is not a particularly busy one but I will be relieved to get the car serviced and MOT tested at the start of the week and this will occupy me for most of the morning.

After I had attended my normal church service and availed myself of the obligatory coffee and biscuits I went off to my local BP service station when  picked up my copy of the Sunday newspapers and also gave the car its weekly car wash. I am quite impressed by the system that allows a pre-rinse, a hot foaming washing cycle and then a final high pressure cold water rinse to get rid of all the foam. When I got home, I made myself a tomato omelette and then set abut making preparations for lunch which involved parboiling some parsnips before they received a final roasting in the oven and then complemented with some broccoli, sprouts and an onion gravy. After we had lunched and then had a little  doze, my American friend and I entertained ourselves by asking our Smart speaker system  (‘Alexa’) to play a selection of songs from our youth, mainly it must be said from the early 1960’s. Then we had a late ‘sweet’ and set off for a walk in the park when the weather had cooled down and there were some lovely cool breezes in play. When we got home, we treated ourselves to some  blueberries and ice-cream before my friend left the house so that we could get established in front of our respective TVs in order to watch the Brazil vs. Norway match. I know that I need a fairly early night as I have to be up early in the morning to get my car into the dealership by about 8.15am for a service. T do this, I have to go to the nearby town of Redditch and spend some time entertaining myself in a local supermarket until the car service has been completed. Apart from the car service this week, the weather promises to be quite hot and threatening but perhaps not with the extreme heat of a week or so ago. So again, this will have to be carefully managed but my American friend and I have established a pattern  where we meet in our local park and do one or two circuits of the man-made lake punctuated with a sit down on a bench and lots of conversation. Later this week, I have another  ‘Curry Club’ meal in the early evening and this will be an Indian restaurant in the nearby town of Droitwich. Next weekend, my  friend and  have made tentative plans to go to John Lewis in Solihull where we may purchase a new TV my friend feels that she now needs, her other one being about 17 years old and the technology has moved on so much in recent years. 

So after our 5 hour ordeal of the day before yesterday, I did not sleep particularly well, being I suspect a little over-tired after all of the concentration. Today I looked back at some of the traffic reports of the incident and there was a remarkable lack of agreement over the actual delays experienced. National Highways were reporting delays of anything from 90 minutes to 2 hours whilst, looking at the web, it was evident from several comments that many people, myself included, had reported a delay of five hours. So why should  National Highways report a delay figure that were so evidently at variance with the facts experienced by so many of us? It is rather disconcerting, to put it mildly, then agencies of the state lie to the general public – is this to cover up their own deficiencies and to try and absolve them of any calls for them to have plans in place to ameliorate the consequences of accidents like these? The traffic reports do indicate that in the massive jam and the heat several vehicles just broke down and this added to the general chaos. Indeed, when we were about to clear the congested motorway, there was an abandoned vehicle with its emergency lights flashing stationery in the middle of the motorway and negotiating this was hazardous in the extreme as the streams of traffic on either side  of the stranded vehicle were unwilling to let us in! We succeeded  in negotiating this hazard needless to say but one can only imagine the impatience of motorists who had been stuck on the motorway for the past five hours. I personally think the Highways Agency should have closed the other lane of the motorway and then opened up an emergency space in the cash barriers to allow cars to ‘exit’ the wrong way down the motorway, under supervision, as happened to Meg and myself about 15 years ago on the M42 when we missed our flight to Spain. Actually, if we had plenty of fluid, my friend and I would not have dared to drink it as we had no access to toilet facilities. I wonder how many medical emergencies, or near emergencies, ensued as a result of all of this and whether any lessons will be learnt?  In the morning, I have read that it was being considered that the England vs Mexico match should be rescheduled to 7.00pm UK time to avoid the threat of thunder storms  but, in the event, FIFA has determined that the original starting time (1.00 am in the UK) should stay in place so there is no hope of a reprieve here. Today, I have the prospect of a concert in our local church of St Johns but I need to see how I feel before I attend this. Apart from this, I have a quiet day in prospect and am left to ponder that at least my friend and I dd not suffer any medical mishaps after our enforced and lengthened journey although we were both at the point where at the end of a journey we were both starting to experience some discomfort. I have not any lunch organised for myself today so I suspect that a sustaining omelette accompanied by salad may well be the fall-back situation.

In the morning, I made my way down to the large St John’s church where  I heard the talented local family give a performance of J Bach’s Brandenberg concertos Nos. 3,4 and 5. This was hugely enjoyable and the concert was evidently highly appreciated  by a church that was, I would estimate. some two thirds full. I had remembered to take a cushion with me and bumped into a few people that I already know, largely from my U3A ventures. After the concert, tea and cake was provided gratis but contributions were invited and I think most people gave generously. When I got home, I rescued some frozen curry from the depths of the freezer for my lunch but whilst this was cooking, I sent a letter of complaint about yesterday’s traffic delay to National Highways. The nature of my complaint was about the quality of the information given to the press during the course of the day. I complained that of the did not know that the delay for most of us was five hours and not the 1½-2 hours they had given to the media, thheir information systems were dire. If one the other had, they were aware of the length of the delays, why was the promulgated figure so much less than the experience  of thousands of us and the figure of five hours delay was much quoted on the social media. I also questioned why the other carriage way was not closed off and vehicles escorted off the road by driving the ‘wrong’ way down the motorway as happened on the M42 about fifteen years ago when Meg and  missed our holiday flight to Spain? According to the website, I may expect a reply within about 10 working days and I will be interested to see what kind of ‘gloss’ is given  to the whole incident. The AI ‘take’ on all of this is that the authorities always underestimate the actual degree of delay caused which very often exceeds the official estimates of the delay. The cynical part of my nature is that this under-reporting isnot just due to the inability of the model to assess multiplier effects but is part of a mindset that does not wish to accept criticism of their  own performance. In the afternoon and after lunch. I took a lot of pleasure in seeing Wales beat Fiji by 39:24 in one of this weekend’s Rugby Union fixtures. Another treat lies in store for shortly there is to be an England vs. South Africa match to be shown on ITV4.  It looks as throughout the  entire day, ITV are trying to show many of these Northern vs. Southern hemisphere matches in the brand new competition which has started this year with one day full of Rugby today and another in the Autumn.

Tomorrow I have a genuine clash of commitments to brighten up my start to the weekend. Firstly, our local Methodist Church organises on the first Saturday of each month an event called CAMEO which acronym stands for ‘Cone and Meet Each Other’ This event is designed so that the widowed, bereaved and those who find themselves in a similar situation meet for a coffee and biscuits, followed by a talk or presentation on generally local topics. This, as the demographics would suggest, largely consists of widows rather than widowers but there is a very large overlap between this and the U3A (University of the Third Age) membership and is an event tat I usually attend but tomorrow there is competition in the form of a free concert of the Brandenberg concertos in our local parish church and, for me, the concert wins out (and I expect that I shall bump into members of my U3A Classical Music Appreciation group there). Later on today, I have offered to take my American friend to one of the local hospitals in Worcester where she has a couple of scans organised, but we had arranged to have a light brunch together before the hospital trips. The car parking can be a nightmare in the local hospitals and sometimes it can take as much as three quarters of an hour to locate a parking space after much circling around and if your blood pressure was not elevated at the start of this little venture, it almost certainly is by the end of it. After my own little hospital visit the other week, I was surprised to get a letter written by the consultant which started off by thanking me for my attendance. This I showed to my son who came around the other day who informed me, probably correctly, that no consultant had ever put pen to paper as it were but the whole letter would have been AI generated after some inputs from the hospital. There is an unexpectedly little political row going in our political scene at the moment. As England progress to their next opponents in the World Cup, and this is scheduled to start at 1.00am in the morning, then the Government in an attempt to court some popularity is going to pass some emergency legislation to allow all pubs to stay open until 5.00am in the morning. But this is far from universally welcomed as the pubs chains say that they themselves are staffed by people who are already juggling with second or third jobs and they doubt that they can get the staff to work all the way through the night. The England manager (German!) is suggesting that parents allow their school age children to stay up all night to watch the match whereas our Education Secretary and school leaders are saying that they expect their pupils to be in school at 9.00am the following morning. I am certainly not going to stay up all night to watch this match but if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night, I might just allow myself a pee to see what is going on. England playing at altitude against Mexico on their home ground are almost certainly destined to lose in any case so who put oneself through the agony of watching it all? As my domestic timetable works out, I have to get the car into the garage to have its annual service by about 8.15 I the morning so I don’t intend to  do this on zero hours sleep. A thought that has just occurred to me is that  wonder what kind of state the mechanics will be in who are due to service the car that morning? In any case, I have the international Rugby competition  to which to look forward starting this weekend and whilst any people follow Wimbledon avidly at this time of year, I have long lost interest in this sport.

In the mid-morning, I journeyed down the road and picked up my copy of my daily newspaper and bought a small, speciaiist pie for my American friend and I to have as a sort of brunch before we made tracks to Worcester Royal Hospital where my friend was timetabled to have a couple of scans. The first of these went fine and then we had a coffee and then set in search of the mobile MRI scanning unit which was based in a sort of caravan arrangement in the hospital grounds and was quite hard to find – there were no signs to it either. Eventually, we located the unit and when the scan was completed we set off for home just a little after 4.00pm.This is when the fun and games started because  we ad only just got onto the M5 motorway when we ran into the mother of all traffic jams.  After about an hour and hardly any distance having been travelled, I phoned my son and got the news that the motorway had been closed some ten miles up the road. A lorry had jackknifed and burst through the barrier separating the two carriageways, spilling its entire load of diesel fuel across the road. Evidently, this had to be cleaned up, the lorry removed and then the carriage way checked for signs of damage whilst we were stationery in our vehicles for hours on end. Eventually, we got off the motorway having spent five hours covering a distance of about 8 miles. Both my friend and I felt the need to go to loo but of course we were stuck in the car, not even able to navigate to the left hand most lane where it  might have been possible  to relieve ourselves on a suitable verge which is what some male drivers actually did. So this was probably the worst motorway holdup of our entire lives, but we survived it OK without mishap and got home just after 9.00pm in the evening, heartily relieved. We listened to a mixture of Classic FM, a local radio station where we got commentary on a cricket match and then a combination of Radio4 and Radio4 Extra. After this incident, we are resolved to make sure the car is equipped with some portable receptacles in case we ever find ourselves in a similar situation with no loos in sight. I personally think the motorway authorities could have acted more expeditiously to find a solution to getting us of off the motorway because closing the motorway for some 6 1/2  hours and having  a ten mile queue of largely stationery traffic is not really acceptable.

It is perhaps of no surprise the football dominated the evening before last. England were facing DR Congo and I, for one, was not surprised when DR Congo took the lead in the 7th minute after a lamentable defence which seems to be the England trademark these days. The England performance improved for the rest of the game, but it was difficult to break the opposition defence until a Harry Kane header in the last quarter of an hour. So it was a nervous match to watch but once England had equalised, the winner was scored by Harry Kane, only 4 minutes from the end of normal time. Kane scored a brilliant captain’s goal by rounding two or three defenders and then unleashing an unstoppable volley to secure the ultimate victory.  However celebrations may be very short-lived as our next match will be against one of the co-hosts, Mexico who will be playing ‘at home’ as it were in the Azteca stadium in Mexico City and at an altitude of 2,200 metres and England has only 48 hours in which to acclimatise. This combination of circumstances massively complicates the probability of another England victory and I expect an early England exit. The match does not start until about 1.00am on Monday morning so I wonder how many will actually be watching it. The other football match was Senegal vs. Belgium in which Senegal undoubtedly playing the better football throughout the majority of the match, making the Belgians appear tired and disorganised. Senegal were two goals up and apparently cruising to victory when Belgium unexpectedly scored two goals in the last five minutes of normal time to level the scores. After two periods of extra time, Belgian was awarded a hotly disputed penalty after a VAR review of what appeared to be a foul on the goalkeeper. If there was contact, it was very slight but nonetheless the referee awarded the penalty from which Belgium scored with an impressive shot that secured a 3:2 victory. One could only sympathise with the Senegalese who had so completely outplayed Belgium for so much of the match only to see victory snatched away from them in the dying seconds of the game. I suppose the moral of all of this is not to relax, even when victory seems minutes away and to reflect that the better team does not always win matches, particularly in the World Cup. To make matters worse for the Senegalese, almost exactly  the same thing had happened in the regional African cup when Morocco had secured a victory against them. But we can reflect on the fact that England will almost certiainly be knocked out in the Mexico match and we can look forward to a final which I predict will be Argentina vs France. The day promises to be quite a busy one as I have my Tai Chi class quite early in the morning and this will be followed by a Spanish conversation class early in the afternoon so I shall have to organise a lighter, high-speed lunch for myself in the middle of the day. I have looked at the longer range weather forecasts and it looks as though another spell of hot (but not intensely hot) weather is heading our way so in the next days we may seem temperatures of 28° which seems quite tolerable after the experiences  of the last week of June. The year seems to be racing away with us and I suppose we should enjoy the summer whilst it persists and reflect upon the fact that the nights will only start to get a bit longer from this point on.

After my Tai Chi class, I had my normal coffee but forego the toasted teacake or the biscuits in which I used to indulge. Whilst I was in conversation with members of the charity table, one of the regulars gave another one a copy of the printed brochure advertising all o the concerts and events in the Bromsgrove festival which goes on for about a fortnight in late June and early July. Wondering where I might get hold of a concert programme, I decided to pay a visit to our local town library where I was directed to a stand with copies of the brochure. Whilst I was there, I availed myself of a couple of copies of the Bromsgrove Festival brochure and other leaflets advertising local events – when I got home, I made up two piles of leaflets, one for myself and the other for my American friend so that we cam peruse the leaflets at our leisure and decide what local events we wish to patronise. I did notice with particular pleasure that a concert is being provided free in our local Anglican church (which is sufficiently large and capacious to be a sort of mini-Cathedral for the town) by a father and daughter duo who are well known local musicians in the area, the father playing a keyboard whilst the daughter is a violinist. They  are going to be playing the JS Bach Brandenberg concertos Nos. 3,4 and 5 and of course  these will sound magnificent given the acoustics of the church. The whole is advertised as a ‘Coffee and Cakes’ concert and is provided free of charge including refreshments but voluntary contributions are invited and judged by past events, the audience are generous in their contributions. So this is certainly a ‘must’ for me this weekend and I remember attending a similar event last year which on that occasion felt particularly strange as I attended the concert on my own. I had to have a fairly quick and thrown together type of lunch because it was the afternoon of my U3A Conversational Spanish group. We have quite a loose format to these meetings because the convenor will put on  a couple of short but instructional Spanish videos explaining the usage of some verbs or idioms and this forms the basis of subsequent discussions. But we often stray off the point and discuss whatever we want which occurs to use as one thought sparks of another and this format seems to suit us quite well as the point is to develop whatever facilities we have in the language. After the class I was over, I spent a long time in conversation outside the community hall with one of my fellow class members (mainly on political topics) and at the end of our extended conversation was amazed to discover that he attended the same church as I do and had actually spotted me and my American friend within the church when we attended the song concert given by schoolchildren on Tuesday last.

The evening before last turned out to be a ‘musical’ evening in a way I could not predict. Last Sunday, when  went to Church, the priest mentioned at the end of the service and not contained in the weekly parish newsletter was going to be a little song performance, put on by the pupils of our local Catholic schools who were touring all of the Catholic churches in the area and putting on this impromptu performance. This was only to be about 30 minutes in duration  and was scheduled to start at 6.00 pm in the evening. Knowing that my American friend both sings in her local choir and is always keen to advance the cause of young people, it was not a difficult task to persuade her to accompany me.  In my imagination, given the short notice  thought this event would be very poorly attended but when we arrived at the church well before time, the car park was already full. The choir consisted of over 30 young adolescents aged from about 13-18 and comprised equally of boys and girls who would sing both the soprano and the alto voices. The little programme consisted of some ten items ranging over a whole mixture of musical genres including the Coventry carol, some gospel music and a difficult piece by John Taverner, I thought the choir performed remarkably well and straight after our performance were racing off to another performance at Mount Carmel in nearby Redditch. The choir master explained  that the choir was shortly to go on a school trip where they would perform in Austria and I was left to contemplate what a wonderful experience this must be for these young people. So as we were quite near to my house, my American friend accompanied me home where we had a light supper of melon slices and some cheese and biscuits together. Whilst we were I our kitchen, I showed my friend some of the collections of CDs that I had assembled to make a musical experience for both Meg and myself  in her declining years. So we put on a little concert of our own, ranging over some of the CDs that I had in stock but also deploying  the facility of ‘Alexa’, our smart sound system, to play whatever we suggested. So for own little musical entertainment, we played for each other, we played a variety of genres starting off with Allegre’s ‘Miserere’ performed by ‘The Sixeen’ followed by some of the introductory  cantatas and arias from Handel’s’Messiah’. Then  I played some Joan Baez (Mexican-American folk singer, very popular in the 1960s whilst we were at University). Then I sang the only folk song  knew I in its entirety, (‘Foggy, foggy Dew’) to my friend followed by a proper rendition by the well known folk singer, Burl Ives. We then concluded with the final cantata from Matthew Passion (‘In tears of grief’) which I heard for the first time when  about 14 years old. To indicate how the ‘folk singing’ part of my musical tastes came about, I explained how Meg had a very good friend at school who not only had a fine singing voice but could accompany herself on the guitar. Hence, she was very popular at the little partes that adolescents organised for themselves in the 1960’s in each other’s houses. So it was natural that Meg would gravitate along to what was the folk singing night each Sunday in the each in a huge old Victorian building in which the University authorities had devoted the whole floor of the building (‘J’ floor) to the students union. The one-time president of the Students’ Union was Anna Ford to receive much prominence in later years as an ITV news reader and later presenter. So Meg and I used to attend these events although neither of felt we had the inclination (or the skills) to perform ourselves. Afterwards Meg and I would treat ourselves to a meal in a nearby Chinese restaurant and that was our recreation for the week until the next weekend. Nightclubs did not really exist in Manchester in the mid 1960’s and even though the Manchester scene was shortly to explode with popular music, we could not have afforded to go to them anyway. Our first inclination was always  to provide our own entertainment or to play Beatle/Stones/Joan Baez records on a Dansette record player when we partied in each other’s flats. These parties were great affairs and were always consisted of three stages the first being the singing and some dancing, then the inevitable pairings off to be followed by deep philosophical meanings on the meanings of life through an alcoholic haze, generally having collapsed to the floor at this point and breaking up at about six or seven in the morning. Then it was a had week’s work before the next round of partying the following weekend.

The morning turned out to be an interesting one. As the rose tree in our back garden has certainly produced an abundance  of scented, deep red roses I decided to cut about eight af them, stripping off the lower leaves and then making a wrapping of tinfoil around the stems. I took these down to the Methodist Centre and whilst having my normal cup of coffee distributed the roses around the serving staff and those sitting round the chatty table (which was naturally, well received) One of the ladies on the chatty table is a volunteer with AgeUK so she gave me some indication of the ways in which  Occupational Therapy can make an assessment of one’s needs for small adaptations around the home to make life generally safer. I am going to pass this information onto my American friend so that she can lo at the feasibility of having a shower rail installed in her shower room. After she had left, I spoke with my bank manager friend who had just experienced his mother-in-law’s funeral and was now busy making multiple visits to charity ships to dispose of unwanted personal effects.  I shall have another coffee with him tomorrow as it is my Tai Chi day, cancelled last week as the weather was so hot. Then I went an did a routine weekly shop in what seems to be a quiet time in the supermarket and, upon returning home, prepared a lunch  comprised of some quiche with salad accompaniments. Late on this afternoon, England will meet the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the English management has already expressed some nervousness about the progress and outcome of the match as the Congo play a similar style of football to Ghana with all-defence from which there are lightning breakaways to score winning goals.

In the evening before last, I joined with my American friend in the park for our little early evening strollwhich we are both beginning to enjoy. The cares of the da are generally behind us  and we have a walk around the lake, a sit on or favourite bench and, of course, a chat. I handed over some press cuttings and a spare bottle of cordial. When I had visited Waitrose earlier in the day, the shop were selling two bottles of cordial for only 20p more than the price of one so I bought one for my friend and we shared them between us. Dog walkers often seem quite keen to stop and chat and of course there are always the dedicated runners in their Lycra who are doing their designated circuits. After I returned home, I had a light supper of some cheese and biscuits and a slice of water melon and looked forward to the Germany vs. Paraguay match. The course of the match went pretty much as the commentators had predicted with an incredibly stout and well organised defence by Paraguay and good German approach work which failed to supply the finishing touches. Towards the end of the game in which no goals had been scored, it looked as though Germany had headed a winner only for the goal to be disallowed after a VR review of what was adjudged to be a foul on the goalkeeper. Naturally, the Germans and the commentary team were incensed at what they thought was a poor decision, the bone of contention being whether the slight contact and collision with the Paraguayan goalkeeper was sufficiently serious for the subsequent goal to be disallowed. Whether this was or was not the case the football aficionados will argue about for years and I think one can say that in past, pre-VAR competitions, the goal would have been allowed to stand. But the best one can say is that VAR is being applied consistently in the competition and judged by this standard, the VAR ruling was not out of line with decisions made in other matches and so we proceeded to penalties. But Germany has had an excellent record with this to date but not in this crucial match and eventually Paraguay emerged as spot winners but to evident German distress. The first German player had his shot saved, the first time that this has happened in a German penalty shoot since 1982 which, of course, was over 40 years ago. There will be much soul searching over how German dominance has waned over the years and, it must be said that the tactics of a slow passing build-up but without definitive strikes at the end as cost Germany dear. (Much of the same fate may befall England in a day or so) In the morning, we had a meeting of the clans because my son, daughter-in-law and our domestic help all arrived and excitedly shared all their news with each other. My son and daughter-in-law had had a quick bird-watching break in Suffolk and had a good time with a very rewarding bird-watching experience as well as some excellent food and general hospitality.

In the late morning,  I went down for my Pilates class with the normal attendees who have been doing his class for years now. Naturally, the heatwave and how we had survived it all was the dominant head of the conversation we had throughout the class but we all knew that we could not afford to be too complacent  because  we may well have another spell of hot weather over the forthcoming weekend. To avoid cooking, I had defrosted some mackerel fillets and these I had with some salad accompaniments for my principal midday meal. The political agenda was dominated by the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan over which there have already been some ministerial resignations as the amount of new money needed seems to fall short of what some would regard as essential. The UK will scrap some older weapons and kit, including Storm Shadow cruise missiles and a range of military helicopters, under a major investment plan which falls billions of pounds short of what military chiefs say they need. But it could have been worse. The Treasury agreed to give the Ministry of Defence an extra £1.5bn in the wake of John Healey resigning as defence secretary earlier in the month in protest at a lack of cash. This has pushed the total amount of extra money for the defence investment plan to £15bn in spending power over four years, but only £11.6bn of that amount is new money, with the rest comprising a reallocation of existing resources. In a further sign that Sir Keir Starmer belatedly believes even more money is needed to re-arm, his investment blueprint does say funding and plans behind a goal to push defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next parliament from around 2.3% now would be revealed in the next spending review, expected in 2027, where defence will be the number one priority. One detail which seems sensible is that less money will be spent on new ships (which take a long time to design, build and commission) with some of the diverted funds to be spent on drone technology which is one lesson that the whole Ukraine conflict is teaching our military planners. One bit of important news  has emerged today from the US Supreme Court which is heavily dominated by Trump appointments. Trump loses his Supreme Court fight to end birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court has ruled against Donald Trump’s executive order to limit birthright citizenship in the US. Trump issued the order on his first day back as president in January last year as he began a crackdown on immigration. The presidential edict sought to deny citizenship to babies born to illegal and temporary migrants. However, a US court initially blocked it, saying that it went against the 14th amendment of the US constitution – leading to the Supreme Court considering the case. But despite the Supreme Court having a majority of conservative judges, it has ruled against him today. The vote was split 6-3 against Trump’s executive order. Five justices said Trump’s executive order fell foul of the constitution’s 14th amendment, which has long been interpreted to bestow birthright citizenship on almost anyone born in the United States. This is important because Trump is deploying every means he can to disenfranchise parts of the US electorate to attempt to secure victory for the mid-term elections in November which he is predicted to be in danger of losing heavily. Several Republican  states have already engaged in ‘re-districting’ which means redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts within a state to maximise the likelihood of Republican success and to minimise the possibility of any Democratic gains. This is the ‘dirty’ side of American politics (is there a clean side I ask myself?) in which either side tries every means possible to maximise its own electoral base and to minimise that of opponents. Control po elections is delegated to each individual state which according to the US Constitution is solely responsible for the conduct of elections and not even the Federal government even in the case of elections for a new US President.