The evening before last was devoted to rugby and I watched the Ireland vs. Wales match without a great deal of expectation as the Welsh team have been having a run of really bad form. Having said that, the match turned out to be entertaining and at half time the Welsh team were within a couple of points of the Irish with plenty to play for in the second half. Eventually, the Irish team ran out as winners but the Welsh had acquitted themselves very well despite them occupying the place of being bottom of the table. The really intriguing question which will be answered this evening is how the newly refreshed and quite young England team will perform against Italy when they meet in the final fixture of the weekend. Meanwhile the news from the Iran war seems more disturbing by the day. It is very hard to ascertain what the American objectives happen to be in this war as their stated war aims seem to alter day by day and one suspects that they aim to destroy as much of the Iranian infrastructure as they can now that they have complete control of the airspace over Iran and can bomb at will. Meanwhile, the Israelis seem to be taking every opportunity to destroy as many of their traditional enemies as they can and are already undertaking a ground invasion of Lebanon in order to eliminate the remains of the Hezbollah. Based on reports from early March 2026, Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that the current, coordinated US-Israeli military actions against Iran represent the culmination of a 40-year goal to confront and ‘crush’ the Iranian regime. The economic consequences of the conflict are starting to unfold and extending beyond the cessation of gas supplies from Qatar. Oil prices have risen to their highest level in more than two years, after Qatar’s energy minister warned he expects all oil and gas exporters in the Gulf to stop production within days. Saad al-Kaabi told the Financial Times the conflict in the Middle East – a region which plays a key role in global energy supplies and shipping routes – could ‘bring down the economies of the world’. Brent crude oil rose more than 9% on Friday, topping $93 a barrel – the highest level since autumn 2023. Rising oil prices can have wide-reaching effects, not only on how much it costs to fill up your vehicle but also on the cost of some heating, food and imported goods. The Gulf also supplies the world with products such as sulphuric acid (used in the manufacture of explosives) and helium (used in scanners and in quantum computers) so the delicate eco-system of world trade is already being affected. The only smidgeon of comfort is the fact that we are coming towards the end of the winter when our national consumption of gas to heat our houses will naturally lessen during the summer months. The UK economy had just seemed to be turning a corner but now inflation will be given a further twist upwards and our economic recovery delayed even further. It is at times tat this when one would wish that the UK had invested in gas/oil storage facilities to build up a strategic buffer (as has Germany) but we are woefully deficient in this respect.
Yesterday morning, I made sure that I was in plenty of time for the twice monthly meeting of the ‘Carousel’ club which is a meeting of the elderly who meet in the Methodist Centre. Today we had a video made by a former member of the group of life about Herefordshire villages which was moderately interesting. But the main focus of the day is evidently social interaction and I made contact again with one of the parishioners from my own church who occasionally volunteers for work in the kitchen. I also met again my acquaintance of a few days ago who has just moved into the Bromsgrove area and is finding her feet in the local community. Quite by chance, I also met another member of the group, about 50 of us, who is signed up for the same coach trip of Scotland for which I am committed in early April. Then I got home and cooked a fish meal liberated from the freezer before settling down to watch a pulsating France vs. Scotland Six Nations rugby. The Scots completely outplayed the French being fast and incisive and causing France to commit several errors in their frustration. The Scots were at one point leading the French by 7 tries to 4 but when the game was well and truly won France scored a couple of late tries. The Scots ran out as winners 50:40 and are jointly leading France at the top of the min-league table. The England vs. Italy match is being played in Rome and we will watch with bated breath to see if the young and refreshed England team prove their worth. As it turned out, England had a narrow lead over Italy of 2 points and there was an expectation that the Italian team would fade in the second half. But this did not happen and, for a brief period, England had two men n the ‘sin-bin’ (sent off for 10 minutes) with what seemed to me to be rather technical offences. The Italians were lifted by their home crowd and secured their first ever victory over England although the actual outcome of the game was undecided until the last minute or so when England came near to scoring a try which would have drawn the game whilst a successful conversion would have won the match. But rugby matches, particularly in the Six Nations competition, are often won or lost by the finest of margins and the very last kick of the game which was practically the case today.
A further twelve documents have been released by the FBI and in at least one of these documents a 13 year old girl has claimed abuse by Epstein, Trump and other Epstein associates in about 1984. The FBI maintains that some documents will contain fake or unverified stories and it appears that the claims of the 13 year old girl (name redacted) were never investigated. We have known of the existence of these files for some time now but the war in Iran has had the effect of successfully burying such stories. Of course we are now 40 years after the alleged events and even if a private prosecution were to take place after Trump leaves the presidency (if he ever does) then a court would have no evidence to support the allegation and would almost certainly dismiss the legal action.