It seems incredible to believe that in a country as dedicated to sophisticated ways of killing people that the United States is not capable to administering a lethal injection to enact a judicial execution. A Tennessee death row inmate set to be the first woman to be executed by the state in more than 200 years is still alive after being administered two lethal injections, her lawyers have said. Christa Pike, 50, convicted of murdering a schoolmate three decades ago, was due to be executed after the US Supreme Court overturned an earlier reprieve that had been ordered just an hour before her sentence was initially scheduled to be carried out in Nashville on Wednesday. The state proceeded with the attempted execution. However, Pike’s lawyers filed an emergency motion to halt and stay the execution, claiming she was still alive after both syringes of lethal injection chemicals had been administered. She has now been taken to hospital where I wonder whether doctors will attempt to save her life. The damage done to her internal organs such as liver, kidneys, heart and brain by administering lethal injections can only be imagined and I wonder if she will die anyway. I did consult the internet to ascertain what medical protocols are in place in cases such as this. There are some ad-hoc interventions during botched attempts. If an execution is halted or an inmate survives the initial administration while still showing vital signs (such as a continuing heartbeat or consciousness), emergency legal stays or executive orders prompt transfer to an outside medical facility. Once transferred to a hospital, standard emergency medicine and critical care protocols apply—treating symptoms like respiratory depression, hypoxia, or drug toxicity just as they would for any severe overdose or poisoning. Medics are themselves forbidden by their Hippocratic Oath as well as by statute not to assist in judicial executions which may explain why some of these attempts are botched. In the meanwhile, does this survivor have any right to life? Returning to more sanguine matters, we are now in the month of October which a month often typified by a burst of good weather even though the days are lengthening. In two days time, it would have been Meg’s 80th birthday which would normally be an occasion of some sadness. However, my daughter-in-law and I are due to travel to a village in Leicestershire which is approximately half way between Bromsgrove and Leicester so that we can have a meal with some Leicestershire friends, a friendship which goes back some thirty years and no doubt we will all raise a glass to Meg’s memory – we have just passed the point where it is 500 days since her death. When I went shopping yesterday, I ensured that I have all of the vegetables that I need for my next bout of soup preparation. Our domestic help brought along with her a bread slicing machine she had just bought second-hand and with this we managed to cut a sourdough loaf into extraordinarily thin slices which were then frozen. The point of this is both to cut down the carbohydrate count, even in a loaf of sourdough bread but also the very thin slices of frozen bread, once toasted in the microwave, are an excellent quick way to make some croutons to accompany the soup. At the weekend, I intend to make some really good vegetable stock which will be packed full of flavour but can be guaranteed to be salt free. Some of these will be destined towards the kitchen of our domestic help as will some of the soup itself. I may be tempted to buy one of these slicing machines myself but apart from bread it would mean that I can slice vegetables incredibly thinly which might be useful in my soup preparation. I have noticed that most chefs in the internet videos use very large knives to chop vegetables but most supermarkets have a policy where these are not stocked anymore in an attempt to cut down on adolescent knife crime.

After my Tai Chi class this morning, I had my customary coffee sitting at the ‘chatty table’ in the Methodist centre. Here I was engaged in conversation both with my banker friend but also with another couple who are frequent patrons of the centre. This couple have just celebrated 64 years of married life together which I find both remarkable and inspiring. We often hold conversations about current affairs. After we had spent a good half hour in each other’s company which was really enjoyable, I decided to visit my local Lidl’s store to enhance the supply  of vegetables for my soup making and stock preparation over the weekend. I needed some more leeks which I purchased for about three quarters of the price that I would  have paid in my local Waitrose. But I was particularly anxious to get my hands on some raw turmeric root which I located and bought in a packet for less than £1.00. But having got it home, I had absolutely no idea how to prepare to or what quantities to use. Fortunately I found an extremely informative video put on the web by an Asian lady who was the holder of a PhD in nutritional science. From this I leaned that dissolving turmeric in water or even taking pills of it is almost useless as most as most of the useful ingredients of turmeric are not absorbed by the body and hence are wasted. The trick is to add grated turmeric to stews and curries such that it can be absorbed by whatever fats are used in the cooking process. Another method which I think I shall employ is to dissolve turmeric in a glass of warmed full fat milk where the natural fats in the milk will aid absorption. The same video also warned against too much use of this herb as it can cause oxalate damage to the liver. It is advised to pair oxalate-high foods such as turmeric with calcium by eating calcium-rich foods (like milk, yogurt, cheese, or calcium-fortified plant milk) at the exact same meal as high-oxalate foods. The calcium and oxalates bind in your gut and pass safely out of your body as waste instead of forming kidney stones.  I wonder how many people who buy and use oxalates are aware of how to use it safely and for maximum effect. Tomorrow, I shall indulge in some vegetable stock preparation and in the afternoon but in the morning I shall visit my friendly ‘Gifts of Love’ charity shop for my end of week coffee and see what other glass containers (for soup) are available in the local charity shops.

The big, bold part of the Andy Burnham speech yesterday – the triple lock – will now receive a lot of media scrutiny but the debate, as they say, is often generating more heat than light.  The triple lock is to give way to, in effect, a double lock in which pensioner’s incomes will always keep pace either with inflation or with 2.5%, whichever is the greater. The ‘third’ leg of the triple log – keeping pace with wages – has only occurred six times in the last sixteen which is evidently less than 40% of the time. The new policy also indicated that periodically the pension would be reevaluated in the light of wages growth to make sure that they did not get out of kilter with each other so the double lock will be, in effect, a 2½ lock. Also the fact that the ‘care’ component of the afflictions of old age will be met by the state rather than by the individual, should be a massive reassurance to many older people, although it must be conceded that the residential ‘living’ costs of care will not be met. I am sure that the new policy is easy to sell, not least because of the prospect of a National Care Service and the Labour party can now campaign on the basis that they brought the NHS into existence and only they have actually brought the National Care Service into being. It is true to say that using the double lock rather than the triple lock will not release funds on the scale that is needed to fund the new service. But perhaps we could take a leaf out of the German’s book where they levy a social care tax from people in their mid 40’s onwards. This is the point at which people are generally well established in their careers and the costs of rearing a family are largely already  passed. The Conservatives did introduce a formal ‘Health and Social Care Levy’ under Boris Johnson’s government in September 2021. The tax was designed specifically to tackle the funding crisis in the NHS and adult social care, aiming to cap the lifetime ‘costs of old age’ care at £86,000 per person and was a small percentage increase in National Insurance. But it did not survive the ill-fated Liz Truss regime, but the Labour party could introduce a similar scheme in future years and point gleefully to the fact that a previous Tory administration had introduced the concept of a social care levy. The fact remains that national government are best placed to introduce such universal schemes. With some imaginative thinking, individuals could be encouraged to pay into a ‘Social Care’ fund as a sort of insurance policy and this could itself receive government assistance in the form of tax relief but become a way in which, as a mature industrial society n which we are all living longer and getting commensurately more frail, then the inevitable costs can be met at a societal level. One of my favourite quotations is ‘Taxes are what we pay for civilised society’ and originates, perhaps surprisingly, from the American U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, in 1927.

I read this afternoon on Sky News that prosecutions may be forthcoming over the Grenfell fire which took place almost ten years ago. The breaking news is that prosecutors have been asked by the Metropolitan Police to consider manslaughter and a range of other charges against companies and individuals over the Grenfell Tower fire. The force said it has now submitted all its files to the Crown Prosecution Service to allow it to make charging decisions in relation to the June 2017 blaze. The files of evidence, which relate to 20 companies and organisations and 54 individuals, was a ‘milestone moment’ in a ‘truly enormous’ investigation, police said. Seventy-two people died and more than 70 were injured after a fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London. The Met said in a statement that the 20 files relate to 20 companies and organisations and 54 individuals. They ask the CPS to consider charges including corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, health and safety offences, fraud and fraud-related offences and misconduct in public office. The CPS has committed to making the charging decisions before the 10th anniversary of the fire in June 2027. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kevin Southworth added: ‘This is a milestone moment in the police investigation into this devastating tragedy which took the lives of 72 people. Our dedicated team of 220 investigators has worked incredibly hard to honour our commitment to the bereaved, survivors, residents and all those affected by the fire to meet this timescale. We appreciate, of course, it has taken nine years to get to this point. As we have said before, this is one of the most complex investigations ever undertaken by any UK law enforcement agency – the scale is truly enormous. While we know this has had a significant impact on those waiting for answers, it has necessarily taken this long to ensure our investigation is meticulous and presents the very best possible evidence to the CPS for charging decisions.’  If a trial does take place, I have severe doubts whether this long after the event any prosecutions will succeed. Firstly, corporate manslaughter and similar prosecutions are very difficult to prove in law, particularly after a gap of ten years. Secondly, there were reliable reports that on the morning following the disaster, shredders were busy in planning and construction firm offices making sure that no evidence trail existed. And thirdly, we have a long track record of instituting enquiries, in some cases decades after the event (such as the ‘Bloody Sunday’ enquiry, the ‘Hillsborough’ football disaster) none of which generated any prosecutions or findings of guilt. The day proved to be a typical mid-weekday in which I picked up a newspaper and then went off for a coffee in the Methodist centre where there one or two acquaintances with whom I chatted. Then I did a normal weekly shopping in my usual supermarket and cooked myself a lunch of quiche and cabbage. The TV does not look particularly  good this evening but there may be another in the medical series on ‘The Body’ starting at 9.00pm which might be worth a watch. In the course of the day, I opened a letter addressed to Meg who has now been dead for over 16 months) explaining that the care for dementia sufferers offered by Age UK in Worcestershire could not now be afforded. The Alzheimer’s society had been awarded a new contract but with no social events, trips, outings or anything comparable with the service offered to Meg in the last year or so of her life by Age UK. I think Meg quite enjoyed the limited social contact provided by these even though each visit was accompanied by a fall somewhere and I wondered to myself whether dementia sufferers are having to bear the brunt of unaffordability in the provision of services.

I think that the BBC and IIV often put on a really good programme on Monday evenings, perhaps to help to sustain one through the week. The BBC are offering a series presented by the historian David Olusoga on the origins and history of the slave trade and although elements of this history are starting to percolate throughout the British consciousness, the programme reveals of lot of recent research into this subject matter. Depending on whether you are looking for those who owned plantations or those who financed the transport ships, there are two major databases available (1) The Legacies of British Slave-Ownership Database. If you mean the directory of people who owned enslaved people at the time of abolition, University College London (UCL) launched the Legacies of British Slave-ownership database. It documents over 40,000 slave owners who claimed financial compensation when slavery was abolished in 1833. (2) The Register of British Slave Traders: If you are referring to a more recent project tracking those who financed the ships, the Register of British Slave Traders launched online in September 2026. This comprehensive, three-year research project details 13,000 individuals who invested in transatlantic trafficking between 1563 and 1807. So evidently, the TV series has been launched alongside the release of the latest online database. I think we already knew that the ports of Bristol and Liverpool were largely financed by the profits from the slave trade and the Triangular Trade (manufactured goods to Africa, slaves from the West Coast of Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean, sugar and molasses to Liverpool) In the days when I taught students in higher education, I used to inform them about the Triangular Trade (from which Britain profited on each leg) and I cannot recall a single student who had ever been taught about it in schools. One trusts that this will now change but the British are quite adept at concealing some of the more shameful parts of our island history. The programme last night revealed what I suppose was obvious is that the enormous profits generated from the slave trade were not only invested in properties in Bristol and Liverpool but also in infrastructure that helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution such as the financing of the Leeds to Liverpool canal. It is no accident that the sugar trade was based in the Liverpool area but neither founder of Tate & Lyle owned slaves or ran businesses during the era of legal slavery, but their companies were built on a sugar industry shaped by it. Turning to more domestic matters, there is a great deal of speculation as to the content of Any Burnham’s first speech to the Labour party conference as Prime Minister. In particular, there is a frenzy of speculation that Burnham may well be announcing the end of the triple lock on public pensions to help to finance social care. But there is an argument that the triple lock has served its purpose and the state pension triple lock  has successfully eliminated mass pensioner poverty, but it has created severe fiscal unsustainability and intergenerational unfairness, leading experts to argue it has outlived its original design. UK workers have been experiencing unprecedented falls in real wages and living standards. Taking a balanced view of the available data suggests that since 2008 real weekly wages have fallen by around 8 per cent, which amounts to a fall in annual earnings of about £2000 for the typical (median) worker. So the parents in the population who are pensioners have done better in recent year than their sons and daughters who are still in employment.

After I returned home, I made myself a fairly quick meal of a prawn omelette supplemented with some petit pois and this is fairly typical on one of my Pilates’ days as it can be thrown together quite quickly. Turning on the TV, I heard most of the conference speech given by Andy Burnham and in it, I believe that he has actually pulled off a major political coup. Instead of pieties, he announced the end of the triple lock on pensioner’s incomes in the next Parliament, replacing the triple lock with a double lock of either 2.5% or the rise in inflation but dropping the third part of the triple lock which was the rise in average wages. This was a very bold move and no political party, particularly the Conservatives, would have dared to have done such a thing as they rely so heavily upon the pensioner vote. But to have got the new policy greeted with a degree of adulation by the Labour party in conference was no mean feat and Andy Burnham, in a supremely emotional speech, was able to announce that the end ending of the triple lock would help to fund the creation of a National Care Service along the lines of the NHS. I happen to believe that this has been very clever politics because it shows that the Labour party can propose the creation of a National Care Service postponed by politicians for decades, indicate some of the ways it can be financed by the ending of the triple lock and even reassure the bond markets in a perverse way that a Labour Prime Minister would not be averse to taking difficult decisions. At the same time, there were announcements of a greater state involvement (not outright nationalisation) in the ways in which our energy and water markets are organised. Again, the water industry is so discredited since its privatisation that even the Tories seem hard put to defend it. There is no doubt that there will be difficult arguments ahead, not least over the ending of the triple lock, but most neutral economists were of the view that the triple lock is in its present form was unsustainable in any case. It will be fascinating to observe the stance of the newspapers when they are published tomorrow and even the views of the ‘middle ground’ insofar as it is captured in programmes like ‘Question Time‘ broadcast on Thursday evenings.  I think it is fair comment to say that Andy Burnham has given the Labour party reasons to be hopeful and there are other parts of his speech which might be termed ‘brave’ such as a commitment to establish a national commission on electoral reform. Debate over the system has intensified since Labour amassed a huge parliamentary majority with a 34% vote share in 2024. Around 100 Labour MPs recently supported a parliamentary amendment in favour of setting up a commission to examine alternative options, a move Burnham himself supported last year when mayor of Greater Manchester. In his speech Burnham told delegates: ‘We will all have failed in our public duties if we carry on as we are and open the door of No 10 to a divisive government on less 30% of the vote or less.’

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.