I got up pretty late this morning as I knew that I would oversleep my normal getting up time. My American friend and I stayed up late to watch the marvelous rom-com film ‘Shakespeare in Love’ which deployed the whole range of British acting talent and we really enjoyed it but it did not finish until after midnight and hence the lie-in. But I really got some really good news this morning after I had transmitted a text to one of my nieces. At about the same time each year, she attends a large religious religious convention for young people which takes place in the West Country somewhere. She has to make the journey back to Yorkshire which is a very long way but my house is not far short of the M5 so this represents a wonderful opportunity for us to have a quick together although I shall be seeing her in just over three week’s time in the trip to Yorkshire. So hopefully she will be with me/us just before midday so I need to do a certain amount of prep, not to say tidying up, before she calls around. We are at the start of a new week and the weather men tell us that there is going to be one tremendous stab of really hot weather with a movement northwards of some Saharan air but hopefully this will represent the last day of really hot weather this summer. Politically, there is a fascinating by election to be held in about 10 days time. Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, resigned as an MP in order to fight his Clacton constituency and hopefully, secure a new mandate. But the main political parties are refusing to stand in what they regard as an electoral ruse so that Farage may escape some parliamentary scrutiny of the funding streams he has enjoyed from millionaires over the past few years. The by election has attracted 34 candidates which is a record for British politics and the candidate list is over three metres long which has created some difficulties for the way in which the election is actually run. Farage’s chief opponent is actually ‘Count BinFace’ who is a joke candidate who has a dustbin for a head. By any of the normal rules of politics, the election ought to be walk over for Farage and the Reform party. But this is not a ‘normal’ by-election and if the Labour, Liberal, Green and a few other supporters vote for Count BinFace then Farage might have quite a fight on his hands. Even if Farage wins but by a small margin, this could be regarded as a type of Pyrrhic victory and strange things can happen in by elections particularly if the turn out is small and held in August which is normally the ‘closed’ season for political activity. So the results of this by election will be keenly awaited and certainly discussed and a recent opinion poll; shows the following. A fifth of voters could back Count Binface over Nigel Farage in the upcoming by-election in the Reform UK leader’s constituency, new polling has suggested. A new survey by Survation for Mandate Research suggests Mr Farage would win 73 per cent of the vote on a low turnout when constituents head to the polls later this month. But his main rival, Count Binface, could sweep up an estimated 20 per cent of the vote. When options are reduced to just the two candidates, Mr Farage’s vote drops to 69 per cent, while support for Count Binface surges to 31 per cent. The poll, seen by The Telegraph, also suggests that Mr Farage would gain 56 per cent support in the next general election, with the Conservatives on 10 per cent and Labour on 8 per cent. But, of course, we shall have to wait and see and a surge of support kin the last few days of the campaign are always possible. Will Labour and Green voters be keener to vote for Count BinFace than Reform supporters are to vote for Farage? Returning to more prosaic issues, my only extra-normal commitment this week is a Spanish U3A group meeting on Thursday for which I need to undertake a modicum of preparation.
Just after midday day, my niece arrived, breaking her journey up to Yorkshire. I was delighted to see her and introduced her to my American friend who I had invited around so that the two could get to know each other. Previously, I had stripped the pieces of meat from the carcase of the duck which provided our main meal yesterday and thus ended up with a rich duck stew. I had popped a tray of oven=roast vegetables into the microwave oven so basically lunch was prepared and could be eaten at any time. My niece stayed for about an hour and a half and over cups of tea we exchanged family news with each other before she needed to resume her long trip northwards and my American friend and I consumed the ‘duck stew’ lunch (which, incidentally, seemed to taste just as nice if not nicer than yesterday) This afternoon, after a doze, I have several back issues of the newspaper to scan but later on in the early evening, there will be a trip to the park to undertake our daily constitutional walk. Yesterday when I went to church I learnt the details of the funeral of a fellow parishioner with whom I enjoyed more than a nodding acquaintance as we served on the Parish Parochial committee before and my American friend agreed to accompany me to this which is just over a fortnight’s time. If any of us needed more proof of Donald Trump’s declining hold on reality, one only has to witness the bizarre AI generated images that Trump is posting of himself on his own ‘Truth Social‘ outlet. President Donald Trump spent a chunk of his weekend posting weird artificial intelligence slop images of himself in various situations ― and it concluded with one of his most baffling pics yet. It depicted himself seated at a table with Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Trump in the image is wearing clothing almost identical to Lincoln’s, and the three are shown signing an upside-down U.S. map. Some of Trump’s weekend images included him gazing at a younger version of himself in the uniform he wore during his time in a private military academy as a teen, as well as one of himself as some kind of Revolutionary War hero. Trump, however, never actually served in the military. Trump was of draft age during the Vietnam War, but received four deferments for college and one for bone spurs in his heels. He later infamously told radio host Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was ‘my personal Vietnam.’ Trump’s other weekend images included one calling Venezuela the ’51st state,’ one of him looming over Greenland ― which he has also wanted to make into a U.S. state ― as well as him as Elvis and him kissing a figurine of Jesus on a cross. Trump’s critics slammed him for obsessively posting AI slop images of himself instead of focusing on the war in Iran, affordability or any other issue far more important to the American people.