The evening before last, I had intended to watch a Prom devoted to the work of the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis but instead I found my attention drawn to an Athletics competition. The Diamond League is an annual series of elite track and field athletic competitions comprising fifteen invitational athletics meetings. The series sits in the top tier of the World Athletics one-day meet competitions. I found that the transmission of the events were such that one event followed another in quite quick succession and therefore it quickly became fairly compulsive viewing. By the time that this was over, I watched the News followed by Newsnight. I got myself to bed but could not resist seeing the late transmission of ‘Today at the Test’ where England overcame Pakistan by winning the match by over an innings and with a couple of days to spare. It is true to say that the Pakistani resistance was quite feeble and one must not get too excited but it was an excellent start to watch what one call the Joe Root 2.0 era, as he is now in his second spell as captain. The English fast bowlers were outstanding but a curiosity of the match was that England did field a spinner. Pakistan’s Ali Usman, on the other hand, became the first visiting spinner to take a five-wicket haul in a Test at Headingley since Australia’s Ashley Mallett in 1972 and the first spinner to do in the whole of the UK series of Test matches for 16 years which is quite a feat. Turning to more domestic matters, I gave the two stainless steel vacuum flasks that I bought yesterday a thorough test of being leak-proof as I have had some unfortunate experiences in my last few trips out with a vacuum flask. I discovered after a series of tests involving filling them with boiling water and then leaving them inverted inside another jug, that a faulty cap was the source of the problem and I have now worked out the correct way of putting these onto a filled flask (which involves fitting the cap with the plunger in the down position and then releasing it into the up position once the flask has been filled which, without instructions, is not necessarily intuitive). I now 1.5 stainless steel flasks available for use, the 0.5 being the half size flask originally sold by George in the Asda store for about £5 but which I purchased for 50p in a local charity store. This will prove to be a boon to me in several ways because it means that when I go away I can carry a normal complement of coffee in one flask but a supply of cold milk (or another cold liquid) in the other. It also means that if I were to take walks in the park in the autumn and winter months, then this half size flask will snuggle well into a trouser pocket and provide just about enough hot drink for the venture. So now my flasks can be properly field tested when I undertake a train journey to Yorkshire next week. Having undertaken a peregrination along the High Street yesterday morning, there is no pressing reason for me to repeat this in the morning so I may start to ensure a comprehensive packing of my suitcase for the forthcoming journey.
I popped into town fairly early in the morning to secure my copy of the newspaper which tends to sell out quickly at the weekend. Then I paid a visit to the Salvation Army charity shop where I was in search of a chain upon which to hang one last piece of Meg’s jewellery and was fortunate enough to find just what I wanted which was a fine chain but without a pendant attached to it. So, I was pleased to acquire this and used it to make the medallion which I had into a wearable piece. Then, after a delayed breakfast, I realised that the microwave was badly in need of a clean and I consulted the web for the easiest way to clean up a badly stained microwave and there were two popular remedies, the first of which involved the heating up of some cider vinegar (or normal vinegar for that matter) and the second of which involved baking powder. Although I followed the instructions to the letter, neither of these remedies made much impact upon the stains on the so-called ‘stainless steel’ interior so I made do with the job half completed and thought that I would attempt a second batch of more intensive cleaning a bit later on. My day was a little interrupted because my American friend phoned up and was feeling rather unwell and was wondering whether to make a visit to A&E which was all that the NHS 111 service could suggest. After some consultation between the two of us, my friend decided to come round to my house where she could have a period of tranquility which might be more therapeutic than hours of waiting in an infection-prone A&E so this is the plan that we put into effect. We learn this afternoon that the Ukrainian war has intensified with a further drone attack deep into Russian territory. The Ukrainian regime are conducting the conflict against Russia by targeting their strikes against oil refineries so that the typical Russian motorist now has to join a long line of vehicles in order to get fuel. A huge oil refinery strike has deprived Russia of ‘millions of dollars’ and Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed Ukraine’s strike on one of the largest oil refineries in Russia. The Novokuybyshevsk refinery sits around 1,000km away from the frontline. Ukraine’s president said the long-range strikes are limiting Russia’s military and economic potential. He said this attack will deprive ‘the Russian war machine of millions of dollars in export revenues’. Ukraine has been able to set Russia on the back foot with its success through its medium and long-range drone strike campaign. Meanwhile, the Russians bombard communities, even residential communities, with long range missiles and the Ukrainian air defence systems is not capable of shooting down every Russian missile so that when an attack is made on a residential community then a dozen or so civilians lose their lives. What I find so amazing is that when Trump orders air strikes against Iran or Putin orders similar strikes against the Ukraine or Netanyahu orders similar in Lebanon, then it is most often the civilian population that bears the brunt of the attack. This never has the effect of lessening the resolve of the population, who are then determined to carry on the conflict despite the bombing so why military planners think this is a good way to conduct a war escapes me. One cannot imagine, for example, Londoners calling upon the government to surrender to Hitler at the height of the London blitz in WWII.