So yesterday dawned with that air of anticipation (and a little  dread) because this was the day of the ‘housewarming party’ Actually, this term is a little misleading because the event of the day to which I have been invited, and for which I have helped my Droitwich friend prepare is actually a Puja (Griha Pravesh).  This a Hindu religious housewarming ceremony to bless a new home, inviting positive energy with prayers, rituals (like boiling milk, breaking coconut), and offerings to deities like Lord Ganesha, while a housewarming party is the broader social celebration, often incorporating these sacred traditions to share the joy and seek blessings for prosperity and happiness in the new space, with the puja being the spiritual core. So there are a lot of preparations to be done within the house before the arrival of the ‘pandits’ (Hindu priests) who will perform all of the ceremonies within the house. So the evening before last, I joined with my friend to do some last minute shopping (mainly fruit and flowers that really need buying at the last moment). We made a trip to a specialised Asian shop in Birmingham to by some particular delicacies which are the required food for such occasions and we sat down at a little table in the shop to try some other delicacies.  Then we needed to make last minute trips to both Waitrose and to Lidl which are local supermarkets in Droitwich and there were various last minute preparations to be undertaken such as table setting. I even helped with constructing some garlands out of fresh flowers which must be a first for me. I must say that my friend and I really enjoyed doing this together and she had been involved in last minute cooking, apart from other  things.  There are various social conventions to be observed and as this is the first (and maybe the only) of these events to which I have been invited and  have learnt what these are. My friend will evidently be dressed in her finest, traditional clothing whereas for males the convention is to wear white if possible. Now when I dashed into town the other day, I ventured into the Salvation Army store and actually found a pair of white cotton trousers  which was fortunate indeed. The minute I got home, I tried them on and they were a perfect fit and my domestic help who is very knowledgeable about clothing affairs thought they were perfect. I know I have a pristine white shirt (last worn on the occasion of Meg’s funeral) but  have also hunted out some white socks to complete the ensemble. This later is quite important because shoes are never worn in such ceremonies but left at the door so my good fortune with my white clothing attire has continued – is this auspicious, I ask myself. At the last moment, the timings have all changed  so after an urgent text I need to be ready by mid-morning (which I will be) rather than midday. Now another quite extraordinary thing has occurred. One of my favourite tracks of music, much played  on ClassicFM, is from Brahms ‘How wonderful is thy dwelling place’ and of course, although a different musical tradition, the words are so appropriate to the occasion. So I have put a link to it on my phone so it can be played one a suitable occasion such as before the Hindu pandits arrive.

So I arrived at my friends house just after 11.00am and the Hindu pundits had already arrived and were setting out all the things started for an elaborate ceremony which started at about 11.30. Much attention was paid initially to Ganesha who is one of the most revered and popular deities in Hinduism, easily recognised by his elephant head and human body. He is primarily worshipped as the Remover of Obstacles (Vighnaharta), the patron of arts and sciences, and the deva of intellect and wisdom. Ganesha is the son of Lord Shiva and their close relationship parallels that of ‘God the Father, God the Son..’ in Christian  theology. The ceremonies involved seeking divine approval by the offering of incense, sounds (a tinkling bell) and a variety of foodstuffs. Eventually, a sacred fire is started and then the family members add grains of rice, ghee (clarified butter), milk and flower petals to the flames while the priests intone some sacred mantras. After the main ceremony had concluded, there was a quick procession through the major rooms of the house with more invocations to Hare Krishna and then a final and probably quite important blessing of the family car which given the state of today’s traffic is probably sorely needed. After we had partaken of some lunch my friend took her eldest son to a school football match I which he was committed  to play. Whilst they were out of the house, the younger son and I did a certain amount of clearing up and washed up what we could. Then after the tidying up, we spent quite a lot of time talking about cricket and then rounded after the afternoon with one of these programmes, much beloved of Channel 5, on the best adverts in place during the 7190’s and 1980’s Then when my friend and her eldest son returned it was time for me to leave but I had been at the house-cum-ceremonies for a good eight hours.

The situation in Greenland continues to evolve a  Trump is threatening 10% (growing to 25% in June) on some of the major European economies and  the Baltic stated. Several European states, including  the UK,  are sending some troops to Greenland perhaps not to engage in any real military conflict as to send a symbolic message to Donald Trump. Some analysts are arguing that supplying troops to Greenland is indicating to Trump that a military conflict would  be a disaster and therefore he using the imposition of tariffs as a political weapon to force other countries to comply with his wishes. But it does appear that Starmer has found some backbone and is now not averse to telling the US what a mistake the imposition of heavy tariffs would mean for the alliance. As Trump only understands and responds to the threat of force in international affairs, it is more important  than ever that Europe as a whole if prepared to take on rump even it comes to European states being prepared to confront USA militarily.

I awoke up a little later yesterday morning and realise that I have a certain amount of shopping to do as I forgot one or two important items yesterday. I have watched on ‘Sky News’ some of the first hand reports of the situation in Minneapolis where less than a week ago a woman was shot dead by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers who act almost as a private army for the Trump regime. The situation on the streets is incredibly tense as a second person has been shot but not killed outright and there is almost a running battle between the citizens of the city and the ICE agents who themselves deploy pepper spray and flash bombs quite freely. It looks as though the ICE agents actively search out anybody who is non-white and bundle them into their vans (i.e. arrest them) until such time as they can prove to be legitimate US citizens. The BBC correspondent on the ground is reporting  that one would think that tis is 1936 in Germany here the Gestapo lifted Jewish people off the streets merely on the grounds of appearance. But this is a massive stand-off as Trump is deploying more and more agents whilst the Minneapolis citizens are arming themselves and resisting with all of their might. Never was the word ‘flashpoint’ more accurately used and the very presence of the ICE agents, extremely heavily armed. Trump is threatening to use some legislation called the Insurrection Act which would enable him to send in actual  troops to attempt to quell the situation although it is hard to see how much better armed regular troops might be than the IC agents themselves. It could be the case that ‘regular’ American troops are more disciplined than the ICE agents themselves but, of course, troops of every stripe are not particularly well trained or accustomed to dealing with their own citizenry and one fears that further bloodshed is inevitable. This whole scenario does not the criteria to be labelled as a ‘civil war’ but it certainly feels that way in Minneapolis at the moment. Absorbed by our own political domestic news, replete with defections and back-stabbing within the Tory party the issue is relatively unreported n the British media. Sky News does a good job  but the American unrest is low on the priorities of the BBC who one feels dare not to make it their headline news for fear of offending the current Trump regime. Trying to curry favour with rump is the Nobel peace prize winner, Maria Machado who has ‘given’ her medal to Donald Trump in order one suspects to gain power in Venezuela. Trump for is part has indicated that the offer of a medal is a ‘nice gesture’ but is in no hurry to instal Machado or anything like a democratic regime in that troubled country. It is another sign of the corruption of the American political system  that Venezuela has had its past dictator removed by the Americans but they themselves are not minded to restore democracy even to a leader who by all accounts actually won the last election held there.

Yesterday was a running around kind of day. I picked up my newspaper and then popped into my local Aldi to pick up some provisions which I forgot to buy the day before. I also wanted to buy some particular little presents for the house-warming party in my friend’s house tomorrow and this involved re-parking the car and making a flying visit down the High Street. Then I came home and did not feel particularly hungry so had a little doze and then made myself a fish-on-bread type meal which I always find both nutritious and sustaining. Then I decided to bite the bullet and make the round trip to the tip to dispose of my three large old suitcases which the bin men refused to take yesterday. To be fair, the round trip was about 12 miles and took me only half an hour but the road diversions en route do not help. I spent some time wrapping up my little presents ready for tomorrow and my friend and I exchanged texts and may need to make some final, final tweaks before tomorrow. If this sounds very mysterious, all be revealed  in a later blog.

Just when you think things  could not get worst over the Greenland issue. Trump threatens tariffs against countries that don’t go along with Greenland. Donald Trump has said just now that he may put tariffs on countries that do not support his plan dor the US to control Greenland Trump said ‍at a rural health roundtable at the White House. Trump has repeatedly said that the US “absolutely” needs to acquire Greenland, increasing pressure on Denmark, which the island formally belongs to. This latest comment follows a high-stakes meeting at the White House on Wednesday between Denmark’s foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, and Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, along with US secretary of state Marco Rubio and vice president JD Vance. Te Europeans are already escalating the situation  and France has already  sent along the first of a contingent of French troops to support the Danes inn the face of an imminent invasion and the Germans may not be far behind. I cannot see the UK being bold enough to put boots on the ground in the present conflict because it could mean UK soldiers being asked to fire upon and kill American troops. But there are moves afoot in the US Congress to impeach Trump over the Greenland issue and some Republican senators are getting seriously alarmed. A meeting between the Danes, Greenlanders and Americans failed to resolve the issue and it now appears almost certain that Trump will attempt to get his way ‘one one way or another’ The message that sends to the rest pf the world is lightly too horrible to contemplate. The impeachment issue is given additional force by the way in which ICE is acting as a private paramilitary force and the moment may soon be approaching when parts of the American political system say that ‘Enough if enough’ and realise that the global interests of America are best served by the de-fenestratipn (‘throwing out of the window’) of the American president.

The evening before yesterday was filled with a visit, with my daughter-in-law to our local arts centre (The Artrix) to view a live feed of ‘La Traviata’ direct from the Royal Opera House in London. When we booked the seats all of the balcony seats were indicated as sold so we did not have a lot of choice half way up the stalls. But when we got to the theatre, there was hardly anybody there and there must only have been 30 people at the most in a 300-seat capacity theatre. The staff explained to us that when the theatre shows tribute bands they are almost completely full but they know that opera will be nowhere near as popular) but, after all, this is Bromsgrove. So, they indicate all of the balcony as being ‘sold’ to give the impression of a much better filled theatre, but they use the profits from the full capacity tribute band audiences to cross subsidise less popular offerings such as opera. My daughter-in-law and I were really enjoying the performance but the sound levels had been set incredibly loud so at the first of  the two scheduled intervals, we had a word with the theatre manager and he moderated the sound to a more acceptable level for us. We really enjoyed the performance and in the last scene where Violetta dies (slowly) in the arms of her  lover, I was weeping copious tears but silently so that nobody would notice in the dark. During the first interval, we had a word with another couple who told me about a Bromsgrove community choir which meets about once a week at the Methodist Centre on Thursday evenings. As men are in short supply (outnumbered about 3:1 by the women) I might be tempted to join this choir, particularly if there are opportunities to socialise afterwards. However, I am not convinced that my singing voice reaches choir standards but it might be worth a try. Both of the lead singers in the opera performance were older than we might to led to expect and the singer who played Violetta had performed the role more than 300 times and this only enhanced rather than detracted a virtuoso performance. Violetta has a huge part and is singing her heart out for most of the opera, but she realises that she is destined to die (from tuberculosis) and so a vein of sadness and impending doom runs through the whole of the opera. When I got home, I texted my Droitwich friend to see if her boys would like one of my spare briefcases as they are both college students and texted over photos of the same before engaging in a little computing before bedtime. I had discovered another little program which manually, rather than automatically, flicks through a series of photos and this had a footprint which was 40% smaller than the previous one to fulfil this function for me and, again, was easy to tweak. So this adds to my little repertoire of useful programs so  need to document it in my software book so that I do not forget how to tweak the program to fit my needs.

Our domestic help called around today rather than two days ago and we had quite to discuss after we had cleared out some material which had been stored under the eaves of the house. This delayed me somewhat so that I  missed the slot for my Tai Chi class but turned up at the very end hoping to make contact with my friendly retired bank manager. He was not there this morning  but four others who I know by sight and myself inhabited the ‘chatty table’ and entertained ourselves with travellers’ tales and the like.  I needed to buy some cleaning products for our domestic help and so left once my hours of parking was due to expire but probably on account of the rain, trying to secure a parking place nearer to the centre proved impossible. At one point, one of the nearby car parks had a queue of six cars waiting to park so eventually I trusted in the faithful  Waitrose car park and walked down into town to secure some cleaning products for my domestic and an (impulse) buy pair of casual trousers for myself. Then I returned home and prepared myself a huge lunch with bits and pieces left over (onions, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and some greens and made into a huge Spanish omelette. After a delayed lunch, I went for our weekly shopping at Aldi and when this was concluded met up with my Droitwich friend where we discussed some of the practical arrangements for a housewarming party she is organising for a couple of day’s time. After our clearing out activities the other day, I had rather hoped that I was to be spared a long journey to the domestic refuse tip particularly as the old and empty suitcases had disappeared and I made the assumption that the crew on the disposal vehicle had taken them away. But when I collected my wheelie bin from the kerbside, I realised that the removal men had emptied the wheelie bins and then put the abandoned suitcases back inside the wheelie bin. So they are forcing me to make a long and time expensive round trip to try to eventually dispose of these items and it seems a very churlish attitude to refuse to dispose of any additional unwanted items.

There has been another high defection from the ranks of Tory ex-ministers. to the Reform Party. Robert Jenrick has joined Reform UK, Nigel Farage has today confirmed at a press conference in Westminster. The ex-shadow justice secretary was sacked by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch this morning, after she allegedly got wind of his plan to defect – and booted him out of the Conservative Party. As that news broke, Reform leader Nigel Farage played down expectations of Jenrick joining the party, confirming that he had been in talks with the top Tory – but denying that a deal was ‘signed… and sealed’. But events clearly move quickly – as Jenrick has now become the latest, and biggest, high-profile signing for Farage’s outfit. Farage describes it as the ‘latest Christmas I have ever had’. Jenrick then joins him – after a minor panic due to his late arrival. One is very tempted to use the expression ‘rats from a sinking ship’ but that is how appears to most of us. Robert Jenrick was excoriating on the attacks that he made on other Conservatives who until a day ago were fellow members of the Shadow Conservative cabinet.

The previous day and evening had been one of complete frustration as I could not manage to adapt the HTML code with which I had been working to give me my desired rolling automatic display of photos on a particular website. But then just as I was on my way to bed, I had one of those ‘Let us just see?’ moments and went on the web only to find a program that fitted my needs perfectly. This program was beautifully but simply written with some CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) elements as well as Javascript which all give the program its functionality.  Whoever had written the program had evidently done so with ‘maintainabilty’ in prospect because well written programs always have a line of comment so that users such as myself can see what each portion of code does and therefore how it can be tweaked to fit one’s needs. So  I was delighted to find this program which is just what I was looking forward to and was quickly and easily adjusted to my exact needs and served as the perfect end to a day which otherwise had been filled with a certain degree of frustration. So naturally, I will write this up in my book of ‘What have I learnt today?’ so that I can utilise this program whenever I feel the need. Although technically, I did not really need to spend time on this, I like to keep whatever coding skills in relatively good order and reminds you that in the computing world, whatever problem you have or need to fulfil, someone out there has already been there, done that and acquired a solution. But of course, one has to ask the question in the right way to get the solution that one wants.

I was reasonably surprised upon consulting my smart speaker this morning that the initial temperature was -2° because  it did not feel that cold. I think the answer to this conundrum was that in the past few days we have had a fairly icy wind which has made the temperature feel lower than it actually was. I went onto the BBC website and consulted their weather section where they had an extremely good presentation of the week ahead. This was well illustrated with appropriate maps and representations of the weather to come so that now I know that today, is going to be dry and cold, tomorrow a huge band of rain will sweep across the country so good weather clothing is indicated whereas after that the picture is one which is cloudy and showery but with the kind of regime and temperatures  which are about typical for mid January. This particular bot of forecast is so well done I may get into the habit of consulting it quite regularly. In the political news this morning, there is an announcement of a new rail line to be built connecting Birmingham with Manchester but work only to start in the next decade. However, no timescale for when it would be built has been provided – or any other details, such as how it will be funded. The Treasury says it wants a new Birmingham-Manchester rail line, but it will not be a reinstatement of HS2. Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government scrapped a planned extension of HS2 between the two cities in 2023 to save money. Land obtained for HS2 between the West Midlands and northern cities will be kept while the project is developed. A new line would ease pressure on the West Coast Main Line, the government said. This seems like one of those announcements in which the government can claim a lot of credit but any expenditure implications will be left for future governments. I imagine that having already acquired a lot of the land in anticipation of HS2, it was sensible to retain it and use it to eventually enhance the network.

In the morning my son and daughter-in-law came around to help clean out the second of ‘hobbit holes’ giving access to the eaves and used as storage space. This particular hobbit hole had a collection of old suitcases, travel and holiday associated things and a collection of old briefcases. We have evidently retained the best of the suitcases whilst disposing of the remainder and a lot of packaging material and empty boxes have now been disposed of. Contained in one of the briefcases were quite a lot of Meg’s old medical records and it was a little sad to see these scribbled over with lots of notes in her own handwriting. I resisted the temptation to look at these in detail but there was also quite a lot of correspondence from the time of Meg’s enforced retirement which records were now more than 30 years old and well disposed of.We even discovered one or two greeting cards from our wedding which was 58 years ago now. We are now left with two large storage spaces but after we have given them both a big clean out, we shall only store a few select articles there well secured inside plastic boxes and well labelled to boot so we know exactly what is retained. As this was the day when the normal domestic rubbish is put in wheelie bins at the end of the drive, I managed to dispose of several black plastic sacks only to be left with three old but large suitcases ready to be taken to the tip. I have actually placed these on the top of our wheelie bins trusting that the reuse disposal crew who come very early in the morning (at about 8.00am) will take pity on me and throw the empty cases into their vehicle as otherwise I have to make quite a long journey to the tip which takes both time and petrol money. My son and daughter in law brought along some delicious home made mushroom soup as well as home-made mackerel paté so we lunched on these items complete with sourdough bread and this was all delicious. In the afternoon, I needed to go to our local hospital for a routine appointment and, as I was there for a minute or so over the hour paid a car parking fee of £4.40 for a stay of about 65 minutes and it is always incredibly difficult to find a car parking space any time after about 8.30 in the morning.

The evening before yesterday, I finally managed to refurbish some of the skills I used to possess in getting various photo collections online in the form that I wanted. I do have a book which I call ‘What I have learnt today’ and in this book, I document any procedures that I have used in the past but some details may have been forgotten in the meanwhile. By consulting this book, I managed to ascertain that the website that I used both to resize and also to label photos is still in operation as well as another website useful for cropping photos and these websites are now safely stored in some bookmarks for when I need them next. I also succeeded in ensuring that all of the photos that had taken of the cat that used to visit me (Miggles) are all now resized in the same aspect ratio as the originals and this means that I can now give my friend with whom I was in email contact recently the link to the website that displays the photos. I must say that messing about with photograph collections can suck time out of you, particularly  if you do it irregularly and forget some of the key details. The email client that I use allows one to store photographs in the webspace that they provide and, in theory, these are available to be viewed either as a film strip or as a slideshow. Some photos I have uploaded in the past are shown in one mode and some in another so I need to do a certain amount of fiddling about and experimentation to get things the way that I actually want them. Actually, my email client webspace reveals some quite interesting historic family photos but I need to get these displaying  a slideshow mode before I can construct a website that would tie them all together into one access URL. I think that the younger generation probably just take a photo and then make it available on Facebook without all of the messing about with which I am currently engaged. But I have no desire or intention to use Facebook in this particular way, particularly as one’s security details are always potentially at risk. There is a huge row going at the moment because Elon Musk’s ‘X’ social media (formerly Twitter) is now giving users to opportunity to undress and then to publish photos using some of the latest artificial  intelligence models. The British government is pushing back quite vigorously against this development but is being accused of ‘Fascism’ and ‘denying the rights to free speech’ by Elon Musk and the ‘X’ corporation, even though these developments are evidently falling foul of the latest and still rather weak legislation in the Online Safety Act, passed in 2023 but already being overtaken by the marches of technology. In theory, the whole of ‘X’ could be banned in the UK but no government wants to take on the media giants such as Musk who now possess enormous social and political as well as economic power. I am sure that the average users of ‘X’ have no real idea of the uses to which their data will be put once they have been seduced in parting with some of their personal data which can then be manipulated or abused in all kinds of ways. Savvy parents may try and shield their adolescent offspring from these dangers but they are no match for the huge corporations that now dominate the social media scene.

My son called around this morning and he was a welcome visitor as I had not had any social contacts over the weekend, as the bad weather had put paid to some plans that we had to have a meal together over the weekend. At the end of the morning, I attended my Pilates class but it proved to be rather a sad occasion as one of our ‘old faithfuls’ is leaving us to go and live near to her daughter in Dorset, I believe. This makes a total of four of my acquaintances and near neighbours who are selling up to live nearer to their daughters, and all of this is quite understandable, of course but it is always an occasion of sadness when a long-established friend moves away. It was raining hard when I attended my Plates class but upon my return I cooked myself a lunch of quiche and readily steamed vegetables, before continuing working on getting some of my software to work to provide me with rolling displays of some of my collections of photographs. This contained some sources of frustration as some of my collections of photos give me a wonderful rolling display but others do not and I cannot work out why the same software appears to act inconsistently. I struggled it with a bit more in the evening having thought that I had discovered a ‘work around’ solution only ultimately to be thwarted.

We have seen some interesting political news domestically as the former Chancellor (for a few days), Nadhim Zahawi, has now defected to the Reform party. Normally, the defection of a big scalp like this would be seen as a source of celebration but this is not the case today and reaction has been decided mixed. This is because of the move made by Zahari is being perceived as naked political opportunism, devoid of any ideology and only reinforces the nation that firstly, Zahari is only looking after himself and that secondly Reform is becoming a resting place for ‘spent’ Tories. Reform are finding that now having a prominent place in local government is no bed of roses as they are having to manage services which  have to be provided by law but with a funding regime that has been systematically squeezed over the years. Interestingly, Reform-led councils seem to be putting up council tax at the same rate as other political parties and this calls to mind the aphorism of a prominent American  politician of the 19th century that one ‘campaigns in poetry but has to govern in prose’. On the subject of politics, there is now almost daily speculation in the liberal American media about the state of Trump’s mental acuity which seems to be declining fast. He was asked by a fairly friendly reporter when each member of the American public was going to get the $1,000 that he promised as a’bonus’  coming from the tariffs he as imposed. Trump had apparently forgotten that he had made the promise and it is quite evident that it is not going to be honoured. Trump is quite notorious in constantly changing his mind according to the last person that has spoken with him so even close allies are having to factor in that what Trump may promise today may well have been forgotten about by tomorrow.

I awoke yesterday morning to a little nightmare (Meg and I were in a cafe we didn’t know and Meg wandered off and was lost, as was I) from which it was good to wake up and discover that the dream was not true. Fortunately, when Meg was alive this never happened but it is interesting how the subconscious retains these memories and even fears. The temperature this morning was an almost unbelievable 8° and this is predicted to rise to 11° throughout the day, although a lot of rain is forecast to accompany this rise in temperature. The evening before, I was all scheduled to have an early night and to start getting to bed at about 9.30 but I did quick consultation with my emails before retiring. Then I discovered that a long lost friend had sent me a long and informative email so this evoked an equally long reply and what with one thing  or another it was nearly midnight before I finally took to my bed.  During the cold spell, I had invested in a couple of hot water bottles and these have proved very efficacious but I wondered if I could make some covers for them. In one of our kitchen drawers, I located a couple of small kitchen towels which, to be frank, we hardly ever use so I pressed these into service, putting a strip of ‘gaffer’ tape to keep the cloths in place. I expected these to unravel during the night but they did not and actually kept warmer for longer so the plan worked very well. If I can find the time later in the day, I may try to do a little  sewing job on these to make the tea towels into permanent covers but I might be able to prevail upon a friend who I know has a sewing machine to do a quick little job for me as this stitching job might take seconds on a machine or, mote likely, I might scour eBay for some bargains.

In the mornings, I tend to have a quick look at the political news and discovered this morning news that economic protests had broken out in various parts of China. These events are quickly stamped down upon by the authorities and the censors make sure that nothing ever reaches the internet. But in this era of smart phones and the ability to take instant video, then details are leaking out of workers walking out of factories to appeal against low wages which the kind of protest that you associate with the capitalist West rather than China. Perhaps this is a sign that the world economy as a whole is running in trouble and one wonders whether the Trumpian policy of tariffs everywhere is acting as a dampener upon world trade. Now that we are in 2026, I wonder if there will be any commemorations of the General Strike in Britain which started on 3rd May and lasted only for a total of 9 days. I suspect that this event will hardly receive any media coverage although plenty of archive film exists from that time. The (upper class) university students thought it was quite a jolly jape to run the buses and the trains although they probably did not have the skills to do either – after all, to be a train driver was to be a king of the working class in those days. 

Yesterday morning I devoted quite a lot of time to getting an .html program working the way I wanted to display photos of Miggles, the incredibly beautiful tortoiseshell cat who sort of adopted me/us and who I fed night and morning for the best part of seven years before he/she mysteriously disappeared just before Meg’s death. I am in email contact with an old friend who is quite a ‘cat’ person and I wanted to put some of the photos I had into some of my own webspace. I have an .html program which is about ten years old which I have used in the past to display both holiday snaps and wedding photos and it uses some very clever html way beyond my capabilities to display photos with a little index bar so that any particular one can be chosen to view. If the original photos are in a landscape mode then the images are resized to a pretty standard 3:4 aspect ratio but if they were taken in a portrait mode then adjustments have to be made. I have got the images available on the web for my friend to view but I need to go back to some of the originals, discern the original dimensions and then make some adjustments either to the images or the code that displays them (or both) This took up most of the morning so I was pretty late getting down into town for my newspaper and then cooking myself some lunch later in the afternoon  than normal. I am on Day 1 of a regime in which I am moving slowly towards a 16:8 diet regime in which I eat nothing after about 6.30pm at night and then see if I can hold out until 10.30 the following day for breakfast. I managed it this morning and it will be interesting to see how tomorrow goes – but cups of tea are allowed at any time. 

Not being a pet owner, I have no real idea of the cost of vets’ bills but I gather they are pretty enormous these days. BBC are showing a Panorama programme asking the question why these bills are so high. In the trailer for the program, the information was given that about half of the households in the UK  own a pet and that, increasingly, big business have moved in so that now we have a situation in which 60% of the market is controlled by just six large companies. Vets have told BBC Panorama they feel under increasing pressure to make money for the big companies that employ them – and worry about the costly financial impact on pet owners. Prices charged by UK vets rose by 63% between 2016 and 2023, and the government’s competition regulator has questioned whether the pet-care market – as it stands – is giving customers value for money. One anonymous vet, who works for the UK’s largest vet care provider, IVC Evidensia, said that the company has introduced a new monitoring system that could encourage vets to offer pet owners costly tests and treatment options. A spokesperson for IVC told Panorama: ‘The group’s vets and vet nurses never prioritise revenue or transaction value over and above the welfare of the animal in their care.’

I am so relieved that the intense cold spell now seems to be over – my Smart speaker which is interrogated each morning as I make my early morning cup of tea tells me that the temperature today is 2° but predicted to rise to 11° throughout the day, which is surely to be welcomed. I have started off the day in a really positive mood so that that even a little mishap with a lampshade is not going to perturb me.  Incidentally, the positive march of technology strides on. I have a flashlight which is incredibly useful in case of emergencies/peering into dark corners but I cannot find the recharging cable for it anywhere – I suppose it will turn up but a frantic search of all of my cables used for charging phones and the like has not revealed it. I think a flashlight like this is quite an essential household commodity so I ordered a new one, hoping that the new cable supplied would fit both but the old flashlight was ordered 10 years ago in any case. My newly arrived flashlight arrived yesterday and I could not be more pleased with it. It had a 2 year warranty, cost one half as much as I paid ten years ago but is three times the brightness. As a bonus (if I lose the cable again which I will not, as I am going to find a little bag to keep the requisite cable in – rechargeable like a phone). Then I can also put normal AA batteries in rather than the re-chargeables. So I am mega pleased with this purchase, as you might imagine. 

A bizarre international story has emerged this morning. We know that Donald Trump earnestly desires the Nobel Peace prize which is particularly ironic given his warlike intentions towards Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Syria, Iran etc. etc. The organisation that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize has dismissed claims that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado could give her recent award to President Donald Trump. The Norwegian Nobel Institute said Friday that once a Peace Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, transferred, or shared.’ The decision is final and stands for all time,’ it said. The statement comes after Ms Machado said she would like to give or share the prize with Mr Trump, who oversaw a US operation to capture Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

This is the time of year for New Year resolutions and these nearly always revolve around four themes which are diet (including drink), exercise, better habits to develop and finally new skills to acquire. I am certainly on board with the first three of these but I suppose I now have no excuse not to try to develop some keyboard skills, given that I have my Casio upon which to play (not to mention the organ acquired through eBay for £15.75 but hardly played) I suspect that I need to devote 30 minutes or so each and every day at about the same time to develop my musical skills but I am never going to make concert pianist standard. I have concentrated in the past upon slow and reflective pieces such as Offenbach’s ‘Barcarolle’, Shenandoah (the traditional American folk song dating from the early 19th century but actually of unknown or at least disputed origin) Even ‘Ode to Joy’ can be very simply played with just one hand and hardly anything to remember.  My son and I had some plans that he and wife would pop over for some Sunday lunch but it was not to be. The area to which he has moved which is only some five miles away is in the lee of the Lickey Hills (between Bromsgrove and Birmingham) and although not being very high, it certainly means that the area as a whole catches the snow and it had frozen on top of that as well, so digging one’s way was an impossibility. I was philosophical about this but it did make for a much longer and lonesome weekend as my other nearby friends seem to be either away on holiday or confined to the house with cold symptoms. In the evening, there was a film about the pilgrimage routes across Europe by Simon Reeve and he focused on the Camino de Santiago, and the pilgrimage site of San Giovanni Rotondo which is devoted to the Italian Saint Padre Pio in which the Italian authorities have invested enormous amounts of money in the construction of modern buildings to make this pilgrimage site a centre for internal Italian tourism. Naturally the program had to finish with a trip to Rome and to the Vatican seeing the shots of pilgrims in the square outside the Cathedral of Santiago earlier in the programme brought memories flooding back, given that Meg and I used to visit this cathedral every year that we visited in friends in La Coruna. After viewing this program, I had every intention of having a relatively early night by going to bed at about 9.30pm. But before I went to bed, I consulted my emails and discovered a very long and informative email from an old friend of whom so I felt constrained to answer at equal length so it was practically midnight when I actually limb up the wooden hills.

The liberal American media outlets that I access on a daily basis on ‘YouTube‘ are still filled with righteous indignation over the shooting dead of an an American woman who was attempting to flee in her car from the clutches of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Despite the efforts of the Trump establishment who are attempting to denigrate the woman and called her a ‘domestic terrorist’ a whole volume of video clip exists which proves pretty definitively that the American woman was shot in the head with three shots by an ICE officer who may well traumatised by a previous incident some six months earlier. The Trump regime have already announced that the ICE officer will not be charged with any offence or otherwise investigated and the FBI have announced that they will conduct their own investigation which is a bit of a farce because the ICE officer has already been declared innocent by the president, the vice-present and the head of Homeland Security. It appears to many that the ICE force, using heavy handed tactics and often with no identification marks and masked to boot, are acting as Trump’s own private army to spread fear through all of the cities which are Democrat controlled and where immigration, both legal and undocumented, is high.

I was hopeful that yesterday morning when I awoke at about 7.30am was to be the last of the ‘cold snap’ But my smart speaker informed me that the temperature outside was -1° but was predicted to rise to about 2°  in the warmest part of the day which at about midday. After that, we should  expect a period of warmer but extremely wet winds rush in from the Atlantic so any last vestiges of snow will be swept away but I imagine that some communities will be badly affected by the ensuing floods. My son and daughter-in-law ere due to come around for lunch and I indicated that  would cook them a meal which would be the first ‘meat and two vegetables’ meal I will have had for several days now.  This morning as I get up and look at the international news, sone extraordinary statements are being made about the future of Greenland, the territory whose foreign relationships are under the jurisdiction of Denmark.  Trump has indicated that he will acquire Greenland ‘one way or another’ although every analyst seems agreed that the USA already has a base there and the ability to bring back into use many other bases that are spread across the land. The Trump argument, certainly specious, is that if America does not ‘acquire’ Greenland then either China or Russia will step in and seize it but America needs Greenland for its own defence. But the real reasons are probably related to the vast store of rare earth minerals that the landmass contains if only they can be exploited (which may be difficult and expensive which is why this has not happened before) But given that Trump is governed by symbolism, I think he is dreaming of a standard map where it looks as though the USA will appear so much bigger if it incorporated Greenland. But the total U.S. Area is approximately 9.8 million sq km (3.8 million sq miles) whereas the Greenland Area is roughly 2.1 million sq km (836,000 sq miles). Thus Greenland is about one-fourth the size of the lower 48 states. but Greenland is roughly 2.5 times bigger than Alaska. The problem with our views of all of this lies in the Mercator projection in which the standard flat maps stretch areas near the poles, making Greenland look similar in size to Africa, when Africa is actually over 14 times larger. So if the USA does ‘acquire’ Greenland, no doubt the USA authorities will continue to display land masses using the Mercator projection. But an extraordinary statement came from the Danish government overnight. After detailing how Denmark had been a loyal member of NATO and friend to the United States over the decades in a whole series of international conflicts, nonetheless the standard instructions given to the Danish army that they shoot any invading forces on sight ‘with no questions asked’ So we have the prospect of heavily armed American troops invading Greenland being shot and returning fire killing whatever lays before them. In the history of colonial America, this will have happened before with the original native peoples as well as Mexico. In the case of Mexico, in the major battles in which Mexico was acquired by force of conquest the Americans lost 50 men but estimates are that the Mexicans lost 1000 which is twenty times as many. Of course such a conflict would be the death of NATO in which the MAGA (Make America Great Again) ideologues would rejoice whilst the Russians and the Chinese would not be able to contain their glee than an important alliance dissolves in front of them.

The planned midday meal with my son and daughter-in-law did not materialise as their car was snowed in and they would have to wait for a thaw to occur before it could be released. In the next 24 hours, there is predicted to be a rise in temperature by 10° and some heavy bouts of rain so this ought to wash away much of the snow and slush. I filled my day with writing some emails to people with whom I wanted be in contact and a big sort out of the newspapers where about a week’s worth of papers needed perusing for interesting articles. At the start of the year, quite a lot of newsprint is devoted to makeovers and the typical subjects at this time of year are finances, diet and exercise. But during the course of the day, I did come across a very interesting piece of video from a British physiotherapist giving some practical advice on how to exercise if one is experiencing any osteoarthritis (which may apply to one of my knees after I was run over by a car decades ago) The physiotherapist was not impressed by the response of most doctors which was ‘fair wear and tear – hare are some pills’. He argued that even cartilage could repair itself over time and all that was needed was a gentle but consistent exercise programme with one or two exercises but performed two or three times daily. This approach may save me a trip to my own doctor so I shall put the recommendations into effect almost as soon as possible.

I do not normally follow domestic football very much (internationals are another matter) but an extraordinary victory was gained by non-League Macclesfield over Crystal Palace who won the FA Cup last May. The difference if league table positions between  the two sides was 117 places which is itself a new record. Every year in the FA Cup there are the so-called ‘giant killers’ where a smaller club knocks out a much larger and more prestigious one but this particular victory seems to have rewritten the record books. What is not often appreciated is the little ‘giant killers’ will almost certainly be knocked out in the next round but they will receive a big boost in gate money and TV fees when they play more prestigious opponents in the next round and this one time boost an help to stabilise the club’s finances which,  in the lower divisions,  are often precarious. Formerly known as Macclesfield Town, the Cheshire club was wound up in 2020 with debts of more than £500,000 and reformed as Macclesfield FC the same year, playing in the North West Counties Football League (NWCFL) Premier Division. The shock scoreline has echoes of other famous upsets by non-league teams in the world-famous tournament, such as Hereford’s 2-1 win over Newcastle in 1972 and Blyth Spartans’ 3-2 victory over Stoke City six years later.

The evening before last before I went to bed, we were evidently waiting for the huge storm to do its worst. Before I went to bed at 10.00pm I looked out and saw that the car had about 1″ of snow on its windscreen which I removed with a little long handled brush which I just happen to have to hand. This morning, the snow was not as bad as was predicted and I also removed the additional 1″ of snow that had fallen overnight and I can tell from the distribution of snow on our lawns that things could have been a lot worse. I exchanged text messages with my son and with my Droitwich friend to ascertain what snow conditions were like. My Droitwich friend had hardly had any snow at all whilst her friend who lives in Bromsgrove and nearer to Birmingham had received much heavier snow falls. As it is the GCSE ‘mocks’ for the boys in their family starting today, then getting into school was quite important but my friend’s boys had managed to make it into school whilst some of their classmates (and presumably fellow examinees) had not. In the morning, I intend to get fully kitted up and will then walk into town but only if things seem relatively safe. I shall deploy a trekking pole as well to have 2-3 points of contact with the ground. In the evening before yesterday, I had received a welcome invitation which was to join a coach party organised to go around Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire in late March, organised as an outing for U3A (University of the Third Age) to which I belong. I replied as soon as I could to the email and was delighted to learn that I was into the system and so I organised the payment of the outing fee via bank transfer to endure that I had a place. After Meg and I had completed our finals at Manchester University, one of her social policy tutors organised a garden party to which our son, then still quite a new-born babe, went along and was the centre of attention. The tutor’s house was practically in the shadow of the radio telescope which obviously dominates the landscape but that is the nearest that we have been to it. Evidently if there are other trips as interesting as this one, I shall continue to sign up for them immediately and as well as the trip itself being inherently interesting, you are also in the company of like-minded people. As well as the radio telescope itself, there are lots of other things included and the outing particulars tells me that ‘we will be able to browse various interactive Science Exhibitions, take a stroll through the Arboretum and take a break and/or refreshments in the on-site café. Leaving Jodrell Bank we travel on to visit the historic market town of Nantwich which is famed for its many medieval timber-framed buildings, Roman salt production and more recently its many independent shops. The nearby canal offers the opportunity for gentle strolls along its banks.’ So all in all, this sounds a wonderful day out and as the date happens to be the date of my son’s birthday, one I am not likely to forget.

I planned to walk down into the town today and this was surprisingly easy as the pavements had been walked on and the snow turned to slush whilst the roads were absolutely clear. I picked up my newspaper and had my customary coffee but did not bump into anyone with whom to chat – I see that the house where Clive the trumpeter used to live with his family has been sold and the family moved to the other end of town. I called in on my Italian friend but she was so poorly we could only have a few snatched words through a (closed) downstairs window.  In fact, on the way back from town I was nearly run over when I was crossing a side road that runs off the Kidderminster Road. I am always particularly  careful on crossing roads and the vast majority of motorists are generally considerate when they see me half across the road but this one was not.

My attention has been absorbed and for understandable reasons about the aftermath of the 37 year old (white) mother of three shot dead by ICE agents in Minneapolis yesterday. One way or another, there seems to be massive amounts of footage of this incident and the New York Times as well as other media have pored over the footage frame by frame.  From this it is evident that Trump, Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have not only rushed to judgement but are evidently lying through their teeth about what happened. It is evident to the vast majority of observers that the victim was trying to escape the clutches of the ICE agents and was in no way trying to run them over as the video footage makes abundantly clear. In fact, the whole collection of video footage could be shown as a training exercise for all law enforcement officers as an example of how NOT to deal with a situation like this. One near neighbour has observed with a great deal of acumen that ‘it is more legitimate for a motorist to panic and to attempt to flee than it is legitimate  for an ICE agent to fire three shots through an open side window of a car and kill the driver’ In the fullness of time, we may see prosecutions but the polarised situation in the USA means that he FBI are solely responsible for any investigations, including of course the body-cams of the ICE agents (which I predict will ‘disappear’) One legal expert has also hypothesised  that an ICE agent who got into his car and then drove away was interfering with a crime scene and this was an offence in itself. I have a feeling that this is going to run and run.

An interesting sign of the times is reported on Sky News. Weight-loss jabs has forced Greggs to change their menu. Greggs chief Roisin Currie says the rise of weight-loss jabs has hit the baker’s bottom line. There is ‘no doubt’ that appetite-suppressing drugs mean customers are looking for smaller portions, healthier options and fibre, she says. Protein has also become the focus of a ‘broader health trend’, so smaller portions and protein-rich products will be rolled out to meet demand, the company previously said. In another sign of changing diets, Tesco’s fresh food sales rose by 6.6% in the 19 weeks to January compared with a year earlier – and the supermarket sold 250,000 bottles of alcohol-free prosecco.

I awoke pretty tired yesterday after the exertions of the day before but I am pleased to have the weekly shopping done and out of the way. But the world is waking up to the fact that Donald Trump is determined to get his hands on Greenland, if only for the self-aggrandisement of bring able to paint a map of America which is much bigger in terms of land mass than it is now. The US president knows no European nation would seriously try to stop him by force because they would lose. He is also probably gambling that Washington could get away with an Arctic land grab, as the rest of NATO needs the US more than he needs them. Of course, diplomatic charm offensives or backroom deals may yet prevail, but the uncomfortable truth when it comes to Trump’s calculations is that he has a point. Decades of over-reliance by most NATO nations on American fighting power, weapons, and technology mean the ability of the transatlantic alliance to defend itself without the US (let alone counter a threat from Washington) has become dangerously compromised. So we are living in a world that predates WWII in which military powers such as Hitler’s Germany thought they could overrun and annexe any adjacent territory at will. But the world as a whole is unwilling to confront Trump because in the last analysis there is no European force that could match the military might that Trump could bring to bear. The population of Greenland is only about 57,000 being the same size as a medium size town in the UK.

My Tai Chi classes are resuming tis week and it really was ‘touch and go’ whether I turned up to attend it. There were only five of us there this morning instead of the usual dozen and I gather that black ice had deterred  some people from attending. After a break of at least a fortnight, I found the session left me with some aching muscles but, in the. event, I forced myself to go. After our session I had a coffee with a chap who is a similar age to myself and who since his wife died  seems to open up the premises and act as a general caretaker most mornings. I was joined by a lady whose company I would not have actively sought as she seems to be one of lifer’s perpetual moaners whatever the topic of conversation turns out to be. She pointed out to be that since she had moved to Bromsgrove from elsewhere in the Midlands, she had found it very difficult to make any new friends and given her constant demeanour of always finding fault with the things and people around her, I was not particularly surprised. I paid a quick visit to Aldi to buy some more of the non-alcoholic wine I bought yesterday and given it was so cheap yesterday (and I suspect they had underpriced it by 80% according to a newspaper review I read of it) I was dismayed but not at all surprised to find that the entire stock had gone. After I returned home, I hunted out some of the risotto I made on New Year’s Day and that is my lunch for today.

The piece of video evidence that has emerged on the liberal social media channels in the US is genuinely shocking. It shows a mother, in Minneapolis aged 37 stopped in her car by agents of ICE (Immigration and Enforcement Control) who, when she reversed her car in a three point turn and tried to escape in her car, was shot three times (once through the windscreen, twice through a side window) The ICE agents refused to let a nearby doctor attend to her to see of she could be saved. The White House have immediately put out a tendentious statement, totally at variance with what the video clip displays saying that the woman had weaponised the car, was trying to injure an ICE agent and then they shot her ‘in self defence’ But the video clip shows an ICE agent attempting to open the door of a slowly moving car before the driver was shot and she had clearly panicked and was effecting a three point turn and then trying to escape. Naturally community tensions are now running very high and, in the opinion of many with a multitude of not well trained ICE agents roaming the streets of big American cities pulling in anybody who appears non-white, this was an accident waiting to happen. But what is so striking is the vicious condemnation of the shot woman and a justification for the killing which looks absolutely spurious when the video clip of the incident is played over and over again. I suppose if the residents of Minneapolis came out in their thousands, they could force the ICE agents off the streets but then a quasi-civil way would be in progress.

At the moment, we are all hunkering down and waiting for the huge storm to hit us later on this evening. According to the weather apps on our phones, we can expect the storm to start at about 8.00 in the evening and then carry on for most of the night. Storm Goretti – the first named storm of the year – hits the UK tonight and is bringing with it a ‘weather bomb’. The phenomenon, also known as explosive cyclogenesis or bomb cyclone, can result in snow and winds strong enough to bring down trees and cause structural damage. The process has been likened to when ice skaters spin faster by drawing their arms in, according to the Met Office. So no doubt we shall have to wait until the morning dawns to see what dump of snowfall we have had. I have just received through my email an invitation to join a group of U3A (University of the Third Age) members on a visit to Jodrell Bank radio telescope at Jodrell Bank in late March. I have filled in an email form for this but have to wait until I discover if I have been lucky enough to secure one of the (no doubt) coveted spaces.I joined the U3A group late last year after Meg’s passing  but this is just the sort of organised trip which it really is too good to miss – we get transported there and back by coach leaving from Bromsgrove bus station to which I can easily walk (if I am fortunate enough to secure a place)