During the past weekend, after I had returned from church,on Sunday I perused the TV schedules and noted that there was to be. showing of the 1935 version of John Buchan’s ‘The 39 Steps’  At first, I did not think I was going to enjoy this version but it was the one directed by Alfred Hitchcock, was very fast paced ad regarded by knowledgeable film buffs as the finest of the several versions made and it kept me enthralled to the end. Then I became thoroughly confused as it did not end in the way that I remembered so I scurried to Google to check out on my ‘false memory’ It transpires  that there are several  versions of this epic and in each one the director has radically chosen how it ends. So we have versions in which the ’39 steps’ are revealed by Mr Memory Man in the London Palladium,  one in which the 39 steps leads down to the sea, one in which the hero is seem clinging to the arms of Big ben and one in which a submarine arises from the depths of a Scottish loch. So I could be forgiven not knowing how the film ends as it depends on what each director’s whim. The actual ending is a little ‘tame’ compared with the adventures which precede it and this is the reason, I suppose, why each director has chosen a different and dramatic ending compared with the book. After I had lunched on some pork ribs and an onion-tomato-pepper mixture, I settled down to watch the Leicester Tigers vs. Saracens rugby union match, the first of the new season. This proved to be a pulsating affair with six tries scored on each side and the with the lead changing hands constantly. I wanted the ‘Tigers’ to win but they were overhauled at the very end by Saracens and the margin of victory was only  two points but, in truth, the outcome of the match could have gone either way. Now it was time to turn my attention to soup making and I parboiled the celeriac, one leek and some celery before giving them a roast in the microwave onion. Then the soup maker did its work and I added some coconut milk, butter and grainy mustard at the ‘blend’ stage. The result was delicious and, naturally, a portion of it provided me with my tea for the evening. The remainder I stored in a specialist container made for the storage of soup in the freezer and in some specialised freezer bags I had purchased for the same reason. To give me some scope for the weeks ahead, I have located from the depths of our garage some of those wide-necked glass bottles which originally contained cooking sauces but which I now sterilised and have got ready for next week’s efforts which are going to be leek and potato. In  a final indulgence for the weekend. I was watched the England team thrash Sri Lanka in the final and deciding match of the three match one-day cricket series which was shown in its entirety but very late at night. So this has rounded off the cricket for the summer but ITV seem to have taken on the mantle of broadcasting interesting rugby matches but some have to be paid for in a special subscription and only a selection are free-to-air so I may have to see what is offered week by week.

The start of the week is nearly always a domestic day with things like washing to do and today was no exception.  But often consulting some videos on the subject,  have decided to try to make my own vegetable stock to use in my soups. There is a reasonable consensus on the root vegetables to go in (carrots, onions, celery and celeriac) as well as things to avoid such as the brassicas, particularly broccoli. Opinion is divided as to whether to use one small turnip or not. Once simmered, or actually sautéed, I think it is quite a good idea to spread the vegetables out and roast them for a few minutes to enhance the flavours. The using a handheld blender, the whole mixture can be ‘blitzed’ adding a little water and some salt although it is best to limit the salt completely if you can. Then the resulting ‘gooey’ mixture can be spread put on some baking paper and frozen for a couple of hours, after which it can be tipped out, cut into cubes and then either stored in a bag or even little squares of tinfoil. Although all of this sounds fiddly, people swear by the flavour, you can reduce the salt content radically compared with bought alternatives and always add additional herb flavourings at the stage when the stock is reconstituted. If soup making is a weekend job from now on I may get into the habit of making  some vegetable stock on dull Friday afternoons. We are now entering the political party conference season and this is the time of year when new policies can be formally announced or even formulated. At the same time the reputation of individual  ministers can be made or broken at this time. Some MP’s actively  dislike the party conferences because they often to defend their positions to delegates who are often to the extreme right (or left) of them. One interesting little question is starting to emerge is that the Burnham government is committed to doing something about social care and Andy Burnham’s father died in the last fortnight from dementia, not knowing that his own son was now the Prime Minister. But the big question is how to pay for all of this but abandoning the triple lock for pensioners after the next election and then asking for a modest increase  in taxation from the rest of us is edging ahead as one solution to the dilemma. The argument is that Labour would not be breaking an election pledge to preserve the triple lock but would campaign for a National Social Care service, funded in part from savings of moderating the triple lock policy to be implemented in the next Parliament. This might ‘wrong foot’ the opposition parties to the right (the Conservatives and the Reform party) but Labour would be able to rely upon the enthusiastic support of the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and perhaps some of the nationalist parties in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well. The whole problem of social care has been kicked into touch by all political parties seemingly for decades now because there is a glaring anomaly that a sufferer from cancer will have their treatment on the NHS but a sufferer from dementia has to bear many of the costs alone, even to the point of having to sell the family home to pay for their eventual residential care.

The evening before last, I made a journey to our church hall where there was going to be tea and biscuits provided by a widow of one of the prominent parishioners who died last year. This individual was very kindly to Meg and myself and I was more than happy to go drink a cup of tea in his memory, alongside other parishioners. I spent the evening conversing with a very chatty Liverpool Irish lady I know quite well as she also works in the Methodist centre and she was actually helping out the day before in the servings of the Ukrainian meals which takes place there once a month. When I returned home  I was just in time to watch the whole of the England v. Spain match. After a goal was gifted to Spain in the first two minutes by a terrible defensive error (to which English players seem particularly suspect) England scored two goals back and were leading at half time. After a penalty was awarded to England, the opportunity was there to go 3:1 up but Harry Kane slipped slightly on his run up and the ball hit the crossbar. Spain then hit back and won the game 3:2 as you would expect world champions to do but the English fans had experienced an exciting game of football of the match knowing that England could have won that particular game. Having had a wonderful day on the Severn Valley railway yesterday I have a little project devoted to the afternoon which is to make the latest in my batch of soups which is going to be celeriac and grainy mustard where all of the ingredients have been bought. Although in theory one can put ingredients straight into the soup maker, I prefer to parboil them and then give them a little roast in the ‘oven’ mode of my microwave cooker to give them a sweeter, more intensive taste before they are processed in the soup maker where I make about 3-4 litres of soup, enough for about 5 servings both on the day of preparation and during the forthcoming week. My future ventures are going to include leek and potato soup and I have read that Maris Piper and King Edwards are regarded as the best varieties to use when preparing leek and potato soup and these two varieties ought to be available loose on the shelves of local supermarkets. On the subject of supermarkets, there is a flurry of excitement as a new Sainsbury’s, built on a previous HomeBase site, is due to open on October 1st which is next Thursday and I may well transfer my allegiance to that new store. But the only thing to moderate one’s excitement is that car parking on the new site is likely to be at a premium and the new development is located in the middle of the dreaded A38 road improvement scheme which seems to have been going on for ever and caused massive disruption in the town. In fact, the local Tory MP has raised the question in Parliament and so much disruption and local angst have been caused that the MP has requested that the Highways agency take over the whole management of the scheme. But this has been beset by so many  difficulties that the Highways Agency do not wish to touch the scheme with the proverbial barge pole and are quite happy to let Worcestershire County Council  continue to bear the opprobrium. The widening and enhancement of the A38 in Bromsgrove, known as the Bromsgrove Route Enhancement Programme (BREP), has drawn intense public scrutiny, local fury, and political fallout. The £50 million project managed by Worcestershire County Council has faced significant controversy over severe delays, escalating disruption, environmental damage, and recent tragic safety concerns. Work on the A38 began in January 2024 and was originally slated to finish by late 2025. However, the council has pushed the completion date back twice, with the timeline now extended to spring 2027. The council blames unforeseen challenges with underground gas, water, and electricity networks. In the meantime, constant roadworks have caused massive congestion, leaving the town gridlocked and severely damaging local businesses. Bromsgrove MP Bradley Thomas publicly stated that the town has lost faith in the county council’s ability to deliver the scheme, accusing the authority of lacking the necessary expertise. Thomas petitioned the central government and Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to have National Highways take over the project. However, in September 2026, the Department for Transport rejected the plea, drawing criticism for washing its hands of the issue. Furthermore, local politicians have warned that the project may be outdated before it is even finished due to changing housing targets. The controversy intensified significantly following a tragic incident at the junction of the A38 and New Road, where a cyclist in his 80s was killed in a collision with a lorry. This prompted immediate calls from the MP and community campaigners for an urgent emergency safety. When the road improvement is in in full operation, it has been calculated that motorists using the new facility travelling North to South may save as much as 2 minutes of travelling time which is hardly compensation for the hours of distress caused to thousands of residents which has seemingly been going on for years.

After my attendance at church and my customary coffee and biscuits and chats with fellow parishioners, I collected my newspaper and gave the car a quick 5 minute wash. I popped into my local Asda and surveyed seemingly masses of different varieties of potato with names that were unfamiliar to me but was delighted to alight upon a bag of Maris Piper, ready for next weeks soup making which is to be leek and potato. The next time I am in this supermarket, I shall write down the names pf all of the different varieties because  even though I have really scaled back  my potato consumption because of the starch, I still like to know what I am purchasing and then consuming and the amount of information supplied  with each variety of potato is limited. Supermarkets often stock a creamy fleshed, red-skinned potato that keeps well and appears very similar to ‘Desirée’ which is a variety I used to grow some decades ago when I lived in Leicestershire and had a long garden in which I grew quite a lot of vegetables  at the time. In  church this morning, there were details of a ‘parish meal’ pre-Christmas in a local hotel but I have put my name down for this even though the event itself is not scheduled until mid-November.

The evening before last was not a particularly exciting one on the TV so I tuned into a series on Channel 4 of which my son had spoken very approvingly. This was a four-part series of on the unfolding of the Suez crisis in 1956 in which Britain and France colluded with Israel in an abortive attempt to seize back control of the Suez canal, which had recently come under the control of Nasser the Egyptian leader.  The programme was one of a four-part series of which I had already seen the first some time ago and now I was viewing the second in the series. The programme portrayed the way in which the military operation evolved almost hour by hour and was absolutely gripping so now I well understand why my son had been so enthusiastic about it on a first viewing. The Suez crisis put a an absolute end to whatever ambitions Britain had as a colonial power and, abandoned by the Americans, marks one of the worst mistakes in British foreign policy and Anthony Eden was forced to resign to give way to Macmillan shortly after its conclusion. I have another two episodes of this series to which look forward so they can wait until there is another poor night in the TV transmissions.  After the watching of this documentary and the  successful completion of a ‘fiendishly difficult’ Sudoku, a strange thought came into my head which was the proof  of Pythagoras theorem (c²=a²+b²) from which derives the square root of ‘c’ as the length of the hypotenuse. Now I had learnt the mathematical proof of this when I was about 14 ad there was a reason why one had to be at this age before one was taught proof of the theorem. This is because one has to already have under one’s belt, as it were, certain elements of both geometry (for example the properties of similar and congruent triangles) as well as some algebra and then the two had to be brought together in one of the classic proofs of the Pythagoras theorem. I used to include an outline of this in one my lecture courses which was called ‘Thinking about Management’ and where I made the first part of a course ‘Thinking about Thinking’ and the proof of Pythagoras was used an illustration of both linear and logical thinking. Returning to the present day, I could not remember the proof of the theorem I had been taught when I was 14 years old but I know that it involved the dropping of a perpendicular and then using the ratio of the sides enclosing both the sine and the cosine angle before some additional algebraic manipulation. So I typed into my search  engine the simplest proof of the Pythagoras theorem and soon accessed a simple illustrated visual which deployed the use of an off-set square within a square and the subtraction of the triangles to find the proof of the theorem. Now all of this sounds very complicated but was actually incredibly easier than the proof to which I had been subjected at the age of 14 in about 1959. The actual algebraic manipulation was minimal and the whole proof could be effected in about 2-3 lines of equations and I marvelled at the simplicity of it. I had imagined there was only one proof of the Pythagoras theorem but there are hundreds of ways of proving it and the actual method that  was taught was not the proof that Euclid himself deployed but was formulated by the 12th century Indian mathematician Bhaskara who developed an elegant visual proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. I believe, but am not sure, that this very simplest proof is the one that is used in modern day GCSE mathematics calculations, the more classical proofs proving to be a too complicated for modern generations of school children. Not one of the students that I taught could prove Pythagoras’ theorem by the method by which I had been taught. The history of the theorem is fascinating, though. The earliest recorded knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem dates back to ancient Babylonian and Egyptian mathematics around 1900 to 1800 BCE, more than a thousand years before Pythagoras lived. Early practical and written evidence from some Babylon (c. 1800–1600 BCE) clay tablets, most famously the Plimpton 322 tablet, list advanced Pythagorean triples (sets of whole numbers that fit the formula showing a clear numerical understanding of the relationship)

After collecting my newspaper from the centre of town, my son picked me up and we proceeded to Kidderminster in order to participate in our day out on the Severn Valley railway. The Severn Valley Railway is a 16-mile (26 km) heritage line running through Shropshire and Worcestershire between Kidderminster and Bridgnorth and is one of the longest preserved railway lines in the country. As speeds on heritage and preserved railway lined are restricted to 25 mph, the journey from one end of the line to another takes the best part of an hour. My son had paid for my ticket so as part of the deal, I was going to buy all of the food for the journey so we treated ourselves to a traditional cooked English breakfast at Kidderminster station. The weather was glorious and the countryside appeared to have made a good recovery after the droughts of the summer and we enjoyed greatly our little trundle through the Worcestershire and then Shropshire country sides. At Bridgnorth, a traditional English pub is built int one end of the station platforms so we enjoyed a pint of mild beer here and then some sandwiches before we made a leisurely trip back again. The train was busy but not overcrowded and my son and I had a good opportunity to tell each other abut all of our current ventures. This  evening, I may well be going out again because the widow of one of the prominent parishioners in my local church has let it be known that she would like to commemorate the year’s anniversary of her husband’s death with tea and biscuits after the normal evening services so I may well go along to that and see who I happen to meet. Although I am not a great devotee of football, I notice that England and Spain are playing each other in a friendly match this evening and Spain is always a team watch watching. It has also been announced that after a long investigation, Manchester City who have been amazingly successful over the last few years has been found guilty of a whole series of financial irregularities extending back over the years and the eventual penalties, yet to be announced, are likely to be severe in the extreme.

My TV viewing included a film on the Romans in Britain broadcast on BBC4 which I found quite thought provoking. The theme of the programme was an examination of the ways in which the Roman invasion of these islands was regarded by historians in each particular era. If we go back to the Victorian Age and even to the days of the monumental Gibbon who wrote the huge ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’  then the act of the colonisation of Britain was viewed through the lens of the historians of the time. So the Roman invasion was generally regarded very favourably with the Vicorians bringing civilisation to hordes of unkempt, barbaric savages as the indigenous tribal peoples of this country were then portrayed. But later generations of historians are painting a much more nuanced picture and argue that the Romans were not averse to a mixture of a mingling of cultures. For example, Simon Scharma is quoted approvingly for the way in which describes how in the quintessentially Roman city of Bath, the indigenous water deity of Sulis was merged in with the identity of Minerva to form a ‘modern’ water shrine. There was even mention of another type of history called ‘counter-factual history’  which is to speculate what would have happened if, for example, Boadicea (whose existence is even doubted) had persisted with guerilla ‘hit and run’ tactics (much as deployed by the Vietcong against the USA) rather than a pitched battle in which one side is decisively beaten.   The Victorians tended to idolise Boadicea and one thinks of the huge statue of her erected at Westminster and some feminists have hailed her as a feminist icon. Bout other historians point to the recent uncovered archaeological evidence in which Roman soldiers were beheaded ‘en masse’ when Boadica successfully raided London and the fact is that if she existed, she may as cruel and savage as the Romans are often depicted. Turning to more contemporary matters, it is often obsessed that Donald Trump is absolutely obsessed with thoughts of the building of his bunker disguised as a ballroom. As evidence of this, correspondents have noted that even during a dinner in honour of Xi, the Chinese Head of State, Trump had to talk about his latest obsession. He took the time during his speech to talk about the ongoing construction of the new ballroom being built in the White House.  Admitting to going off-script just for a second, he invited attendees to visit the site you’ve heard so much about. Trump said the project was a year from completion, and said he thought the guests will see something that I think you will really love, telling them they would be the first people to step foot in it. The US president has called the ballroom the Great Hall of the United States, and said it could rival the Great Hall of the People – where he dined during a state visit to Beijing in May. Last month, the US Supreme Court said it would allow the development of Trump’s $400m (£293m) project to continue for now, temporarily pausing a judicial order that was set to halt much of the building work. I am sure that on the point when the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives a way might be found, despite the Supreme Court ruling, to put an end to this folly.

After I had breakfasted, I made my way to a local Morrisons supermarket where the Philosophy group of U3A meet on the last Friday of each month.  We are a small group of about eight but the discussions are always fascinating. The supermarket allows us the use of their Training Room  and we each throw £2.00 into a kitty which is then donated to whatever charity the supermarket is giving its donations to each month. The topic for discussion this month  was the paradox of tolerance i.e. how far can a tolerant society tolerate intolerance? As you might imagine, it is quite easy to stray from this topic to recent political developments but we pulled ourselves back into line when we strayed too far. The couple of hours absolutely raced by and then our convenor suggested the topic for a months time which is ‘Existentiaism’ For the uninitiated this is a strand of philosophy that emphasises individual freedom, choice, and responsibility, proposing that there is no inherent meaning or purpose to life. Instead, each person must define their own purpose and identity through their actions.Unlike older philosophies that argue humans are born with a predefined purpose (created by God or nature), existentialism argues that we exist first, and our meaning is created later by how we choose to live. This topic will stretch us, I am sure, because we are in effect exploring the meaning of life and religious beliefs may be implicated in all of this. About a fortnight before the meeting, our proposer (in this case, the convenor herself) will source a page or so of background or definitions to wind us up and set us going. I have suggested a topic to the convenor for the next but one topic which I have suggested might be ‘What is Science?’ which I intend to start off with an introduction to the Karl Popper doctrine of ‘falsifiability’ which  may be familiar to some but not all. The convenor agreed readily to my suggestion so I shall look forward to that discussion in a couple of months time. After the meeting of the Philosophy group, I went down to the Methodist Centre to participate in the monthly Ukrainian meal venture. I finished up with a kind of potato, onion and herbs staple of Ukrainian cookery and afterwards had a pleasant chat with some others who I did not know but who had turned up for the meal.  After I returned home, although it was a little gloomy, I decided to take the bull by the horns and mow the back lawn only one day after I had mowed the front green area so that the two are now in phase with each other. The night before I had started watching ‘Question Time’ on BBC1 but fallen asleep quite near the start of it so I might watch the whole programme via the BBC iPlayer the day after the broadcast. BBC4 used to broadcast some good music on a Friday evening and I think it does during the Proms concerts season but most of the year it devotes Friday evenings to repeating decades old episodes of ‘Top of the Pops’ in which I suppose some parts of the population chasing nostalgia might be interested.

The day before yesterday, after I had exercised, showered and breakfasted, I made my way down to the Methodist centre where I spent quite a jolly half hour with one or two of my acquaintances including ‘Mary’ from Liverpool who can chat the back legs of a donkey. She had been undertaking a tour of the local undertakers seeking some quotes for a simple funeral without any ceremony which is what she indicated she wanted. This gave rise to a certain degree of black humour. I did wonder out loud who owns your dead body once you are dead. The answer is that legally, a dead body does not belong to anyone because a corpse is not considered property under the law. Instead of ownership, the law gives specific people the right to take possession of the body and the duty to arrange for its burial or cremation. Resuming a more ‘normal’ life, I made my way to Asda to get some money out pf their ATM and I popped in to buy some celeriac and other soup making ingredients for the weekend. I also took the opportunity to buy a couple more Kilner jars whilst they were available at only £1.50 each. I then did my more normal shopping and came home and unpacked the shopping and was contemplating preparing my lunch when my son and daughter-in-law turned up with some of those specialised containers which are called ‘Freeze pods’  and which allow you to put 2 x 400ml portions of soup into the freezer from which it is quite easy to eject a soup portion when you need to consume it. These were sold in specialised kitchen shops and are, evidently, worth their weight in gold and coming from a reputable source they are BPA free. One of my Kilner jars broke by blowing a large hole in the side when I tried to wash it in warm water so I am faced with the dilemma whether to take it back to get it replaced or whether it is not worth the trip for a small amount of money. I cooked myself some slices of beef in an onion gravy and then some sweet potato rubbed with olive oil and salt and baled upon some parchment paper in the microwave onion. My son and daughter-in-law had journeyed into town and when they returned, we discussed some arrangements we are making for a day out at the weekend  and also for the family meal with cousins in just over a months time from now.

During the evening  I was engaged in watching two science programmes on BBC2 the first being an examination of what appeared to be a crucifixion conducted by the Romans in a village in Cambridgeshire. Although the Romans undoubtedly performed thousands of this cruel form of torture and death, only one other example has been evidenced and that was in Israel some time ago. The programme reconstructed the life of the crucified man putting together the mass of scientific techniques that can now be deployed even including the reconstruction of the appearance of the crucified man. The second programme was an examination of the changes that occur in the human body all the way from conception until death – I learned that one stage during puberty, the growth rate declines in order to devote resources to the growing brain. The following day, I got up late as, quite uncharacteristically I overslept by an hour so had to adapt my morning routines accordingly.  But I got down to pick up my Newspaper and to undertake my Tai Chi class on time where we were joined by three or four new members making the class fuller than normal. Afterwards I had a cup of tea and chatted with some well-known faces and confirmed that the next day would be the one day in the month when members of the Ukrainian community come and cook some of their national dishes whilst the rest f us come along and enjoy a meal which is slightly out of the ordinary knowing that the proceeds that they charge for the cost of the meal goes to a good cause. Quite late in the day I popped along to Asda with the broken Kilner jar in which a hole had appeared the minute I put it into some washing up water. They replaced it at once and without  question so I now have a collection of four of these jars which  will certainly suffice for the moment. After I got home, I cooked myself a simple vegetable curry meal with a few left over cubes of beef and then, as the afternoon was a fine one, decided to make another cut the front greened area. This I did and was glad to have done so as the grass seems to have leapt up since the last cutting. Donald Trump’s war with the American media is still proceeding. CNN went to court to have the Trump ban overturned. A judge has temporarily blocked President Trump’s ban on three media outlets and said their access must be restored but so far the White House is ignoring this. Journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banned from reporting from the White House grounds last week. Mr Trump said ⁠they shouldn’t ​be able to constantly ​write or report ‘fiction  ⁠and lies’ and claimed it was a national security issue. The three outlets filed a lawsuit and argued the ban was a ‘blatant violation’ of their First Amendment right to press freedom. ‘Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the publications said. It could be that Trump is cutting off his nose to spite his own face as in the next day or so, there will be an important meeting between Donald Trump and President Xi of China and Trump in particular craves the publicity surrounding such important visits. There is a particular irony in all of this because we associate the banning and muzzling of the press with authoritarian regimes like China whilst Americans’ rights to freedom of the speech, and by extension the freedom of the press, is supposedly guaranteed by the first amendment to the American constitution. This dispute with the press may well extend to various Appeal Courts and eventually may end up the  Supreme Court but all this is happening when we are only about 40+ days away from the mid-term elections. The normally uber-loyal Fox news is actually acting in solidarity with their ‘pool’ colleagues so we may end up with the spectacle of important images but no sound tracks to accompany them which rather makes a mockery of the whole media circus which normally surrounds visits by other Heads of State.

It is not that every day that a British Prime Minister has the chance to address the United Nations but the fact that Andy Burnham is freshly in post give Andy Burnham that opportunity. After an initial meeting with the American president in which Andy Burnham seems to have acquitted himself reasonably well came the opportunity to address the World via the United Nations. Burnham used the opportunity to launch an attack upon Russia and what he termed their sustained campaign of disinformation. Burnham announced a new unit to tackle hostile information attacks and explained new plans to establish a National Centre for Information Defence amid a growing threat from what he called hostile actors. The Prime Minister also accused Russia of spending around £1.3 billion each year on manipulating information, adding that the rapid developments in AI will only multiply the threat of disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks. Now this is a very interesting, not to say bold, speech to lay before the UN but almost everything that was said could be applied with equal force to Donald Trump’s America and probably the Chinese as well. At the same time, Burnham announced that he would put forward plans for the international regulation of AI. Perhaps the UK is in a unique position to launch attacks on disinformation because the BBC , despite some imperfections and the occasional misstep, is an organisation which few countries in the word can even attempt to emulate. Although America has embodied the rights to free speech in its constitution, this does not extend to the remit of providing free and accurate information so as an old-fashioned liberal, I would heartily applaud what Andy Burnham was attempting to lay before the world. The two issues of accurate information and AI are interlinked of course because there are no unprecedented opportunities for those who can manipulate the new technologies to disseminate information the sole aim of which is to persuade rather than just to inform. What I find personally disturbing is that attacks on legitimate information providers (such as the BBC) are fairly common and a large proportion of the population ‘prefers’ to utilise information that has been broadcast on social media which has no fact-based journalism or integrity built into their basic modus operandi. I consulted the web to remind myself of the processes that are built into the training of every journalist (rather than propagandist) and found the following consensus. In the ‘Reporting phase’, the journalist is primarily responsible for double-checking names, dates, quotes, and background claims during the reporting process. In the ‘Editorial Review’ stage, editors or dedicated fact-checkers review the story, trace documentation, and re-verify key numbers and titles before publication. The ultimate goal is to ensure accuracy takes priority over speed, ensuring that every published claim can be backed up by verifiable evidence. I see that on podcasts such as the LBC James O’Brien show which I tend to view every day then O’Brien will typically ask for evidence of the source from which callers have obtained their ‘evidence’ and the response is very often that the information was obtained via the social media which generally achieves more credibility than organisations like the BBC or the Reuters news agency who are seen as stuffy, old-fashioned and propagating what might be termed an establishment world view. Later on in the day, as we are mid-week, I shall visit the ‘Chatty Table’ in the Methodist Centre which is situated conveniently close to the Bromsgrove High Street and will then probably go off and do my weekly shopping.  Because of my newly re-kindled interest in soup making, I now have to read up on ingredients that are needed in the recipe, very often the things that are not bought every day such as herbs. This week, I am going to attempt some celeriac soup and so am in need of cumin seeds and ricotta or mascarpone cheese.

After I had exercised, showered and breakfasted, I made my way down to the Methodist centre where  I spent quite a jolly half hour with one or two of my acquaintances including ‘Mary’ from Liverpool who can chat the back legs of a donkey. She had been undertaking a tour of the local undertakers seeking some quotes for a simple funeral without any ceremony which is what she indicated she wanted. This gave rise to a certain degree of black humour. I did wonder out loud who owns your dead body once you are dead. The answer is that legally, a dead body does not belong to anyone because a corpse is not considered property under the law. Instead of ownership, the law gives specific people the right to take possession of the body and the duty to arrange for its burial or cremation. Resuming a more ‘normal’ life, I made my way to Asda to get some money out pf their ATM and I popped in to buy some celeriac and other soup making ingredients for the weekend. I also took the opportunity to buy a couple more Kilner jars whilst they were available at only £1.50 each. I then did my more normal shopping and came home and unpacked the shopping and was contemplating preparing my lunch when my son and daughter-in-law turned up with some of those specialised containers which are called ‘Freeze pods’  and which allow you to pit 2 x 400ml portions of soup into the freezer from which it is quite easy to eject a soup portion when you need to consume it. These were sold in specialised kitchen shops and are, evidently, worth their weight in gold and coming from a reputable source they are BPA free.

I have established contacts with two of Meg’s cousins and we have agreed that I am going to host a family meal at the end of October. We are hopeful that two more cousins can join us from Derby so it looks as though I shall be entertaining a houseful at the end of October which is really a labour of love as  I have get on well with both sets of cousins so well. One of my cousins has a coeliac condition but the internet is stuffed full of advice about how to prepare meals for coeliacs so I will give this a good study before I start to think about buying ingredients or preparing the food. I think the most important thing of which is to be aware is the way in which I prepare the gravy because ‘normal’ gravy powder might contain hidden dangers. Now that I have this meal appointment scheduled into the diary, I am in the fortunate position of having something to which I can look forward each weekend. This leaves me one ‘blank’ weekend which I am going to try and fill before the ‘Nations’ international  Rugby competition starts on about 6th November and there are matches to be transmitted on ITV terrestrial TV during November. The domestic political news is dominated by the party conferences which are always held at this time of year. I have never fond these to be a particular source of interest with the exception of the Tory party conference where I quite like to see the blood sport of Tories tearing chunks out of each other and where the facade of unity is allowed to slip for a few days. Thinking about the construction of the so-called ballroom in the White House which is actually going to be a heavily fortified bunker, I amused myself by entering the following query into Google- ‘Do dictators always construct bunkers to evade their eventual capture?’ This revealed what I had suspected that most autocrats/dictators spent enormous of both time and money constructing huge subterranean structures in which they eventually  hoped to hide out when their regime collapses. The historical relationship between dictators and their bunkers is driven by specific psychological and strategic factors. Autocrats are routinely fuelled by extreme paranoia regarding foreign invasions or domestic uprisings. This frequently results in massive state expenditures on underground infrastructure. Ultimately, while dictators spend decades and millions of dollars constructing deep underground complexes, the collapse of their regimes usually cuts them off from these command centres, forcing them into much cruder, desperate hiding places before they are caught. We can see all of the signs in the contemporary  United States as the count down continues to the mid-term elections on Tuesday, 3rd November when a new Congress may be  able to put a stop to all of this nonsense. It is said that Trump is spending an enormous amount of time on these projects instead of thinking about he might extract himself from the Iranian war which he started. There are some signs that just a few Republican congress members are starting to revolt against the war plans and Trump has recently been defeated for the third time as Congress tries to reassert its historic role in determining the extent of Trump’s war powers.

In the middle of the day, I attended my normal Pilates class and we were the same regular group of four. As we have been attending the same class for about ten years in each other’s company, it is hard not to take notice of the fact that we are all getting older together and having to cope with some age-related conditions. One of my class members is having to cope with parents both of whom are ageing rapidly and requiring more and more of her attention whilst she has health issues of her own. This afternoon after I had lunched on a meal of mackerel, sun-dried tomatoes and beet on a slice of sourdough toast, I contemplated seeing what films might be available to watch. There was quite a famous film on the Spanish civil war entitled, after the name of the Hemingway novel no doubt ‘For Whom the Bell tolls’ But as it was over three hours long  and was probably shot in monochrome made in 1944 I decided to give this a miss. One of the stories emanating from the USA which has been rumbling along in the pas few days is the decision of Donald Trump to ban three prominent news organisations, including CNN, from the White House on the grounds they merely published fake’ news i.e. stories that he did not like but cast him and his administration in a bad light. But there is a ‘pool’ of correspondents who take it in turns to populate a small but elite group who report on the presidential comings and goings and they have decided to act in support of one another in putting into an effect  a sort of boycott of the White House. So we had the spectacle of Donald Trump undertaking a ceremonial opening of his new heliport but with the benefit of no sound as the ‘pool’ had withdrawn their services in solidarity with CNN. What Trump had done is almost certainly illegal as well being unconstitutional and there may well be a challenge in the courts but even the super loyal Fox News is contributing to the Presidential boycott which does not help the Republican cause as the mid-term elections are now only 41 days away. The Trump aim is to strip away any objective journalism and to surround himself  with a bunch of sycophants who will act as a propagandist cabal surrounding him but the whole venture is almost certain to end in tears for the Trump presidency as a whole. It is almost 100% certain that he will lose his majority in the House of Representatives where 100% of the House is up for a re-election. Only one third of the Senate is to be re-elected as one third get replaced every two years but even here the results in the US Senate may be too close to call and there is a chance that Trump may lose control of the Senate as well as the House of Representatives. But the political world is just waiting for Trump to attempt some unconstitutional move to deny the results of the mid-term elections in a desperate attempt to cling onto whatever power he still possesses. Many Republicans are not making any mention of Donald Trump in their election manifestos whilst seeking re selection as the Trump approval rate of only 30% (and therefore approximately 70% disapproval rate) is only acting as a drag upon their own campaigns.

I awoke yesterday to one of these ‘travelling’ type dreams that seem go go on and on. On this occasion, I was travelling on my own in Spain and was first having to navigate my way through a strange city on foot to find the railway station. This I did and then had to master the complexities of the check-in seemed which seemed more like  an airport than a railway station and this task was one in which I was successful as well. Before contemplating the next stage of my journey and deploring  the fact that I had left my big Korean style leather jacket behind I then woke up only to fall asleep again and have a dream about chasing a baby sized baby duck-billed platypus through a resort somewhere abroad before I last my quarry. So I was a little late in actually getting up this morning  and have to get going quite rapidly as I have a dental hygienist appointment quite early in the morning. I did take the opportunity, though, to order a stock of some of those specialist freezer bags designed to freeze and store portion size portions of soup in the freezer and also started to explore some glass containers available through Amazon as I wish to avoid plastic containers altogether. I read that I despite the health of the president declining few months before the mid-term elections, Donald Trump is pressing on with two building projects, namely the so-called ballroom as well as a triumphal arch. Donald Trump says his proposed 76m (250ft) tall triumphal arch in Washington DC would be converted to become a top-grade military complex housing drones and snipers and storing ammunition. Writing on his Truth Social platform, the US president said he had agreed to the move following a strong request from the military. He also cited national security concerns but did not mention any specific threats. It echoes the rationale he cited for the $400m (£298m) ballroom complex being built on the site of the White House’s former East Wing that has been demolished to make way for the project. The most cynical of commentators are speculating that Trump is building himself a military site bunker from which it will be impossible  to extract him as he occupies it once an election has been lost in a desperate bid to stay in power and evacuate the White House. The ballroom venture is already several storeys deep underground and houses a heavily fortified military area (bunker, actually) as well as a hospital with the ballroom merely proving a sort of topping to the whole.

In the morning, I went along to see the dental hygienist who I see every six months and I have been seeing her for about the last fifteen years. She gave me a clean bill of health but I needed to book (and to pay for) another appointment in six months time. Also I have a dental check up every six months which is timed half way through the hygienist appointments which means that one way or another my teeth get checked over every three months. I am glad to be back on an even keel because things went a little wayward in the final months of Meg’s illness.  After my checkup, I visited the home supplies store and managed to secure another couple  of the straight sided glass containers that are excellent for soup and just happen to fit in one of the shelves of the freezer. I was on the lookout for glass storage containers but although I found a set of storage containers they had no indication of the materials from which they were made and, therefore, no guarantee that they would be BPA free. Even such a claim does not make the material safe, though, as manufacturers often replace BPA with structurally similar alternatives like BPS (Bisphenol S) or BPF (Bisphenol F). Research shows these alternative bisphenols can act as hormone disruptors in a similar way to BPA. For these reasons, I am tending to avoid plastic storage containers however they are described and look out for glass alternatives which are evidently safer but more expensive. I visited Asda  and did not find any glass storage containers as such but I did find that Asda now had a stock of Kilner jars for only £1.50 each which I snapped up although the checkout tried to charge me £2.00 for them until I objected that the shelf price was different but the counter assistant took my word for it without checking and charged me the lower price. After I got home, I cooked myself a lunch of sweet potatoes, slices from a frozen beef joint and some mange tout peas but I tried to roast the sweet potatoes after parboiling them which all got a little fiddly. I know know the skins are full of fibre and potassium so I will make life easier for myself in the future. After I had rested, I set about getting the back lawn cut where the grass had grown exceptionally lush and thick after the hot weather and then the recent rain but I suspect that I have left it for a fortnight whereas it could actually do with a weekly cut. I had previously consulted the TV schedules and I have two real treats lined up for myself this afternoon and this evening. First to be shown is ‘Hidden Figures’ which is the story of young black female mathematicians who overcame mountains of prejudice to help America win the Space Race against the Russians (6.20 on Film4). My University of Birmingham friend told me some months ago what an inspirational film this was to watch and I did managed to watch a showing of it in fragments but today I am going to enjoy the full, uninterrupted viewing. This finishes conveniently in time just before David Olusoga’s ‘Finding Britain’s Slave Traders’ on BBC 2 at 9.00pm which will take me up to bedtime and is bound to convey some food for thought and may well confront the indigenous community with some uncomfortable home truths. I have enjoyed the other programmes that this historian has researched and presented which he does in a relatively unemotional fashion but the major political question remains whether and how much reparations should be made in a society where we seem to be permanently broke. I am not convinced  that seeking reparations is the correct political response  but I think it is important that our history books and school curriculum adequately reflect the result of these researches. One suspects, though, that this easier to say than to da and the writers of history books for the school population have a difficult task on their hands.

So the weekend saw me making some soup in my Tefal soup maker, an activity which I hope to occupy each Saturday or Sunday afternoon. My latest venture was some curried parsnip and I am delighted to be able to say that I was very pleased with the result. I had, though, taken some pains to sauté first some onions and then some celery sticks cut into small pieces of pieces. The parsnips themselves were parboiled and then subjected to a few minutes of oven roasting as my recipe book indicated that this would enhance the flavour and then I proceeded to make two batches of soup some of which constituted my weekend meal. To ensure that the ingredients were not spoiled, I added coconut milk and the curry powder dissolved in some boiling water after the main preparation stage had been completed and in the Tefal ‘blend’ programme which I believe is best done after the main programme has been completed. Two glass litre storage containers which I had purchased during the week proved to be excellent and they just fitted in my fridge as another bonus. Being so pleased with my result, I decided to do some research after the event and discovered by happy accident that adding the sautéed onion and celery were completely perfect in adding the ‘base notes’ to the soup. What I found so amazing was that the end product had a delightful creamy texture and the onion and celery did not come through as their ‘own’ flavours’ As a result of my research, I have just discovered that adding celery, onion, and carrot as a soup base creates a classic French flavour foundation known as a ‘mirepoix’. It is true that I did not know about the addition of the carrot but this combination is apparently well-known amongst the cognoscenti of soup makers so I will certainly do it regularly from now on. I agree that doing this initial sauté may add to the total preparation time but I believe that the end result justifies it.  My soup book gives details of a ‘beetroot and apple’ soup so I am contemplating whether I can be bold enough to try this out next weekend. During the course of the evening, nothing grabbed me on the TV so I did some Sudoku and played a YouTube rendition of Mozart’s piano concerto N. 21. What followed then was a series of happy coincidences. First, the YouTube algorithm selected for me the Fauré piece ‘Cantiques de Jean Racine’ which I played almost daily to Meg in her declining year as both she (and I) found it incredibly soothing. This was followed by the Ravel ‘Pavane pour une infante défunte’ which I had chosen to play for Meg at the committal  ceremony at the crematorium. And then to complete the evening’s musical entertainment, there was a Mozart Horn concerto beautifully played by a young French horn player and I recall these horn concertos well because I had the four that Mozart composed on a cassette which we regularly played  when we were transporting our son to his boarding school in York. Now the selection of these pieces was not entirely random as YouTube deploys an algorithm to tailor its selection to the user’s preferences but nonetheless it made a very apposite and relaxing concert for me at the weekend.

After attending church this morning, I abandoned my usual car washing routine and instead  made for Hanbury Hall which is a classic William and Mary stately home some six miles distant. This is part of my new routine to fill weekends with some interesting little excursions and the weather happened to be a beautiful fine day. I decided to refuel with a toasted teacake and a cup of tea before I tackled the house itself. Many people just come with their dogs and/or grandchildren to enjoy the magnificent parks and gardens and I might do this on another occasion as admission is ‘free’ for National Trust members but instead I thought I would just make the house itself the object of my peregrinations on this occasion. In some of the downstairs rooms I was intrigued as is often the case by the books that adorned the bookcases of the past. I engaged the conservators in a discussion of the oldest book in their collection and looked at some of the titles that were in everybody’s must have list such as Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queen’ which is a long epic poem.  Spenser creates a lush, dreamlike world of knights, monsters, magic, and romance that heavily influenced modern fantasy but tt is a very long and probably, to modern eyes, quite a tedious read. In one of the upstairs rooms I chatted with one of the guides who had previously worked at Coughton Court, the ancestral home of Guy Fawkes but now reclaimed by the ancestral family who had previously just leased it to the National Trust. This seems to me like a massive scam whereby the original owners get the National Trust to pick up the maintenance costs. The National Trust owns the building and is responsible for its long-term care and maintenance but the Throckmorton family took over the operational running of the site, returning to an independent family-run house and charging visitors accordingly but with no concessions to National Trust members. After I had returned home, I was not particularly hungry but made myself a ‘quickie’ lunch of some tuna enhanced with sauce, mayonnaise and yogurt before my son and daughter-in-law paid me a visit from the mid-afternoon onwards. My daughter-in-law showed me how you could take a photograph of a picture and then rely upon the AI capabilities within Google to have some intelligent guesses as to its provenance and history. We decided that we would book up to see the filmed version of Carmen which is going to be a live transmission and shown in our local Arts Centre in about six weeks time. Although my son is busy in a fortnight’s time,  my daughter-in-law has the time free to accompany me to see my two Leicestershire friends with whom I am going to share a meal on the occasion of what would have been Meg’s 80th birthday, had she lived. In the forthcoming week. my social activities are going to be concentrated upon Friday when we have a letting  of the UA Philosophy group to which meeting I am looking forward (the subject of which is to be ‘How far does a tolerant society tolerate intolerance?’) followed by a Ukrainian lunch in the Methodist centre. Once a month, members of the local Ukrainian community are given access to the kitchens in the Methodist Centre, and they bring along the ingredients and then cook some traditional Ukrainian food. The lunches that are prepared are then sold and all of the proceeds and profits go to fund Ukrainian relief activities – what a brilliant idea!

The evening before last, I was idly watching the TV whilst eating my tea of stewed apples (kindly donated by one of my neighbours) and custard when I stumbled into a programme called ‘Amazing Spaces’ This programme focuses upon innovative types of new buildings and this week was concentrating upon what is called the ‘Small Home’. Apparently, if one can build a structure that will fit on the back of a trailer and is therefore relocatable, one does not need planning permission. One of the cases highlighted was that of a university lecturer who had a small home built by a specialist firm and eventually featured both a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom  and was excellently fitted out with a variety of beautifully chosen fixtures and fittings. This had been acquired on a small mortgage which would be paid off in six years and was going to be relocated to her parent’s residence in Solihull where they could find space for it. The other case was even more remarkable and featured a young lad of only 17 years of age. He lived on a farm and had acquired from somewhere a huge disused container which he set about converting to his home. He started with a budget of £5,000 and actually completed his project under budget. In general terms, he managed to get hold of materials that would otherwise be thrown away – for example, he heard of someone who has having their kitchen refitted who were more than happy to let him have their discarded kitchen carcasses which would otherwise, I suppose, just gone to landfill. Like the other person featured in the film, the internal fittings were of a most innovative nature and his parents had found him a location on their family farm where the trailer/home could be located. One has to presume that in both these cases, one needed a nearby water supply but apart from this, one could only marvel how enterprising and indeed cheaply, these young people had housed themselves. But such innovations have been seen before in British society. Where I lived in Starbeck, near Harrogate, in the 1950’s some people had acquired a railway carriage and converted this into a home. Historical accounts note that thousands of disused carriages were repurposed across Britain—particularly during the interwar period in the 1930s. While an exact aggregate count does not exist, specific regional concentrations and site numbers have been recorded by railway historians. Dozens of Victorian and Edwardian carriages were hauled onto the beach front in Shoreham-by-Sea from the late 19th century through 1918 to form permanent dwellings and holiday homes. In the 1930s, nearly 300 bungalows were constructed in Pagham, Sussex, using pairs of retired railway carriages as a structural foundation or core. Following a 1920s initiative by Southern Railway allowing workers to purchase surplus rolling stock, roughly 30 carriage-homes came to populate the shingle beach in Dungeness, Kent. Turning to the case of the prefabricated houses built at the end of the second  World War, taking the details of the public housing plan from the output of the Burt Committee formed in 1942, the wartime coalition government under Churchill proposed to address the need for an anticipated 200,000 shortfall in post-war housing stock, by building 500,000 prefabricated houses, with a planned life of up to 10 years, within five years of the end of the Second World War. The Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944 aimed to deliver 300,000 units within 10 years, within a budget of £150 million. Through use of the wartime production facilities and creation of common standards developed by the Ministry of Works, the programme got off to a good start and, of 1.2 million new houses built between 1945 and 1951 when the programme officially ended, 156,623[1] prefab houses were constructed. Today, a number survive, a testament to the durability of a series of housing designs and construction methods only envisaged to last 10 years. On the back of this scheme, local authorities developed non-traditional building techniques, which included some prefabrication, notably pre-cast reinforced concrete (PRC), to fulfil the underestimated demand. Now I remember seeing some pre-fab houses as part of the urban landscape when I moved to Leicester in 1971 which was 15 years beyond their allocated life span of ten years and, by all accounts, people found them comfortable and grew quite attached to them. Some of these may well survive to this very day. Because thousands of these temporary post-war homes were built across Britain in the 1940s and have been taken down in piecemeal local redevelopment projects over the decades, there is no single ‘last ever’ recorded demolition date for the entire UK. Thousands of units have vanished gradually, while roughly 8,000 prefabs are estimated to still survive today, with a small number holding official listed building status (such as those on Birmingham’s Wake Green Road and London’s Excalibur Estate). In the Birmingham case, 2,428 prefabs still survive and these temporary homes were only expected to be in use for ten years but 70 years on they are still in use. As Meg and I were completing our undergraduate degree in 1968, a lot of the old terraced housing in Hulme behind the university was in the process of being torn down. Built between 1968 and 1972 to replace old Victorian slums, the Hulme Crescents provided over 3,000 deck-access homes. Architects used an ‘streets in the sky’ layout, featuring wide concrete walkways running past front doors to build a friendly neighbourhood feel. But the massive concrete blocks suffered from severe damp, leaking roofs, cockroach and mouse infestations, and poor construction. Crime went up, lifts broke, and the area became a dangerous no-go zone. By 1984, conditions were so bad that the council stopped charging rent for them. Government funding allowed Manchester City Council to tear down the complex starting in 1993, and the structures were completely gone by 1995. So this ‘new’ housing only lasted about 25 years and no doubt Manchester will be paying for the construction of the deck access homes for decades to come even though they have had to be swept away.

In  the morning, I attended the CAMEO (= ‘Come And Meet Each Other’) fortnightly meeting put on at the Methodist Centre for the bereaved. Of the forty of us there must have been about four males and the women seemed to be in long established friendship groups, many having been widowed for between about 15 years. We had quite an interesting talk on a bus route that runs around the Birmingham suburbs and it was lavishly illustrated with photographs of important houses, factories and eminent people that could be found along the route. Most of the historic pubs and factories had been pulled down to be replaced by housing. After I returned home, I made myself a curry out of onions, peppers, tomatoes, left over scraps of ham and eventually served after the addition of the curry powder with a dollop of kefir yogurt. It was quite a fine afternoon  and I knew that the front grassed area was crying out to be cut  and although I did feel particularly energetic before starting the job, I knew that it had to be done. The back lawn is easier and can wait for a couple days more. Soup making beckons in the late afternoon but only after I had a rest after the lawn cutting.