I awoke fairly late yesterday after I had had one of those nights where you seem to be chasing your own tail all night – all can dimly remember is that I was attending some kind of mathematics convention where nobody could agree on anything and we drifted from one scenario to another all night. In the evening, I had the latest edition of ‘Question Time’ the transmission of which I had just missed the evening before and also watched the Women’s football team secure an evental victory over Greece by 3:1 in a not very convincing performance. When Inhad been up for a sleepless spell in the middle of the night, I saw a video on the preparation of a vegetarian meal which looked so good. At its heart was some chickpeas from a tin, drained, rinsed and blended with a hand-held grinder to a pulp before being added to four eggs in a bowl, whisked and enhanced with the addition of some chopped fresh parsley After this had been put aside, some onions and peppers were gently stir fried and then enhanced with some herbs and seasoning until softened. The eggs and chickpeas mixture is used to make two sorts of pancakes after a gentle frying and then cut into squares and the onions and peppers mixture are then reheated and stirred and the whole is served with a Greek yogurt dressing. Although I did take the trouble to write down the stages in a little notebook, I had better re-watch the video to make sure I have got all of the steps in the right order. The commentator to the video introduced it saying that he had been taught how to make this in a specialist restaurant and the results were more tasty than a conventional meal of meat plus two vegetables. I think that this culinary experiment had best be left to the start of next week when I have plenty of time, patience and of course all of the necessary ingredients to hand. The international political news this morning is filled with the American determination to screen in real time the execution of an American sergeant who was evidently mentally deranged and had run amok and shot dead several of his fellow soldiers years ago. Live streaming and therefore a ‘de facto’ public execution was last performed in the US some ninety years ago and America will join Afghanistan and Iran as the only other two countries in the world to offer public executions. It looks as though even the Trump regime itself is split by this decision by the President and Pete Hegseth, the American self-styled secretary of state for ‘War’ and the vice president has announced his intention not to view the execution. Responding to the announcement that the Trump administration has set the first military execution since 1961, and that the execution will be carried out by firing squad and livestreamed to the public, Justin Mazzola, Deputy Director of Research at Amnesty International USA, has pronounced that ‘The announcement by the Trump administration that it has set the first military execution in more than six decades is reprehensible and showcases the inherent arbitrariness of the death penalty and the authorities’ utter disregard for the right to life. The death penalty is a violation of human rights, no matter what. International human rights bodies have long found public executions as incompatible with the prohibition on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The claim that the death penalty serves as a greater deterrent is simply unfounded: there is no evidence that it has a unique deterrent effect. The death penalty does not make us safer. Livestreaming the taking of a life by firing squad would only compound the cruelty of the death penalty and perpetuate the cycle of violence that the authorities purportedly seek to end. This announcement adds to the display of cruelty that we have just witnessed in the senseless pursuit of the execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee. The US death penalty is irredeemably broken. It is high time that the US authorities, at all levels, use their power to show human rights leadership and end this ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment once and for all.’ All of that having been said, some two thirds of Americans approve of capital punishment and it would not be surprising if the Supreme Court, heavily weighted by Trump nominees, did not give the go ahead for the execution in early December.
My son and daughter-in-law came round to visit me after I had had a minimal breakfast and quickly got a copy of the Saturday edition of the newspaper which tends to sell out quickly. Then we tried to put our collective heads together to attempt to load the TED app on the new Samsung Smart TV. Whilst there are seem to be massive of almost trivial apps available TED is not amongst them and it seems cannot now be downloaded as an app. However it is possible to access it either through a browser or directly from YouTube itself so I think this will suffice for my purposes. With the visit of my family, I completely forget that I was scheduled to have some flu and COVID jabs in the late morning. In the event, my daughter-in-aw drove me down, I tendered abject apologies but was seen in about a minute and emerged two minutes later with a flu jab in one arm and a COVID jab in the other. I had recognised the doctor and she had recognised me but at this stime of year I think they try and get the vaccines inside the patients an get them it of the surgery in about two minutes flat. Tomorrow I shall attend church in the morning but may feel a little under the weather so I am going to return home and coddle myself. During the afternoon, I could not resist a viewing of the Jane Austen ‘Emma’ which is a book I studied for GCE ‘O’-level but I did not enjoy this particular production of ‘Emma’ very much. When this concluded, I set about making two batches of sweet potato soup but I had previously given it a ‘base’ of an onion, carrot, celery and parsnip mixture so we will have to see how it all turns out. MY TV viewing for the rest of the day is all rather variable so I might look at the iPlayer to see if there have been any good films on during the week that I have missed. I expect that when I awake in the morning, it might be with two sore arms as a result of the vaccinations but I am happy to have got these shots of vaccine inside me before the winter flu season starts in earnest.