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.