I got up early yesterday morning, having set the alarm to 6.00am as I need to leave the house at 8.00am to go to church. Once I was up and a cup of tea in my hand, I reminded myself how to make some remnants of wine and cider vinegar into a wine vinegar by a simple expedient of combining them both.  The point of this is that I need to prepare a traditional orange sauce to accompany the duck that my American friend are going to cook together later in the day and the wine vinegar is an essential ingredient here. I need to purchase some orange  juice which I will do just after church and a little cornflower might not go amiss either. The whole point is that is is quite fun to prepare a meal for two in this way but I doubt many people would go to the effort if they were cooking for themselves alone. The week ahead does not promise to be a very taxing one as apart from Pilates and Tai Chi, I have a Spanish club to which to look forward but there is always some housework and cleaning, somewhat put into abeyance when the weather was unbearably hot. There is a lot of speculation whether Infantino can survive the recent revolt against the proposal to spin off World Cup profits to a private company.  The point is being made forcibly is that member associations may doubt whether the soul and spirit of football are in a better place after his stewardship and there are a whole series of incidents (such as  the awarding of a peace prize to President Trump, the overturning of the American red card, introduction of ‘hydration’ breaks) to be put alongside his latest venture. Many think that his days are numbered but there is no evident successor on the horizon. Here domestically we have the Commonwealth games held in Glasgow but they have scarcely broken the surface of public opinion compared with those held in Birmingham four years ago which featured 72 teams, 4,822 athletes, and 19 sports. The games in Glasgow were very much a scaled down affair after Victoria in Australia pulled out due to unaffordable rising costs and the games themselves have only been broadcast for in the evening, starting at 10.00pm when most people are thinking of going  to bed. So I was amazed to discover that the Games were due to close shortly whereas, in my mind, they had only just  opened. It may be that the days are over when one city alone has the infrastructure and the finances to afford such Games and the whole model of allocating the Commonwealth Games to a city has to be rethought. Even in Birmingham, I seem to remember that the Games spilled out into the wider West Midlands region. Now that the month of August is upon us, we have the prospect of somewhat better weather to which to look forward as well as my mini-holiday in Yorkshire at the end of the month. I was so pleased to have secured train tickets for this journey at a very reasonable price but later on in the week, when there are about three weeks left to go I will probably send an email around all the members of my family to see how many of them I manage to see on my stay giving that the last time was a really fleeting visit last Christmas. My American friend will be accompanying me on this occasion and although she has visited Yorkshire before it was a long time ago and I think Harrogate will be a while new experience for her.

In the late morning, I started preparing the lunch – the duck had been cooking for most of the morning but when it was finished I was going to out a Mediterranean vegetable mix into the oven to roast. I had previously downloaded  a Mary Berry recipe from the internet and my friend and I followed it to the letter. It involved  some orange juice, orange zest, wine vinegar, honey and finally some cornflower to thicken the mixture. When we eventually dished up. the duck, the orange sauce was absolutely stunning so thanks to Mary Berry we had a really enjoyable meal. My friend and I relaxed a little after lunch and over coffee in the garden, I managed to show her various photos from my iPhone collection, including some of my relatives and even the classic photo, discovered by a distant cousin  in Australia, of what was my great grandfather’s business which was a mid-19th century bicycle manufacturer in Wolverhampton. We discovered various other photos including one that was taken off me when I was aged approximately six years old and photographed with my sister in the primary school we both attended in Harrogate in Yorkshire. Having enjoyed the Spanish collection in the Proms the evening before last, my friend and I are going  to indulge in some of the great violin performances  at the Proms over the years as well as a showing of the vary entertaining film of ‘Shakespeare in Love’ Fortunately, neither of us has an early morning the next day so we are going to indulge ourselves in a little late night TV viewing. In terms of global politics, Donald Trump is announcing that a peace deal between Hamas and the Israelis is imminent but other analysts such as Michael Clarke here in the UK are very unsure that anything is actually going to unfold. US President Donald Trump has announced his Board of Peace reached an ‘historic agreement’ that would see Hamas militants put down their weapons and Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza. For a start, the Israelis have yet to make any formal announcement that they have accepted the peace deal and, in any case, have pushed up the proportion of land that they occupy in Gaza from 50% to 60%. Even with a supposed peace deal in place, the Israelis have practically ignored cease fire protocols to date and will probably only respond to the very heaviest of American pressure which the USA seems loathe to exert. Meanwhile, some terrible stories are emerging from the Israeli occupied Wet Bank where pregnant women suffering potential miscarriages are forced to wait in Israeli roadblocks whilst the Israeli soldiers train their weapons upon them.  A solution to the West Bank seems as far off as ever and only the cessation of American political support and stopping the flow of private money to Israel (neither at all likely) would exert enough pressure on the Israeli government to force a change in policy.

Just before I went to bed the day before last, I heard the excellent news that the FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been forced to scrap plans to sell off a stake in the World Cup after a global backlash. I am not a avid football fan but the thought of a game enjoyed by millions being hijacked by an autocrat and rights sold to a commercial enterprise run by one of Trump’s relatives was just repulsive. So it looked as though the strong stance played by the European UEFA paid off and we can breathe again – I wonder if a strong candidate will emerge to replace Infantino? It now looks as though moves instigated by UEFA to displace Infantino are accelerating and if this is the case, then it is a case of not if Infantino goes but just a question of when? As well as this good news, I received yesterday an email from my close friend in Madrid (who came to see Meg just before she died and attended her funeral) and conveyed to all of my recent news, including the fact that my American friend and I are booked up to come to Spain in February of next year. Even before that big holiday, my American friend and I are looking forward to four whole days in Yorkshire at the end of the month to celebrate my sister’s birthday but we shall also have some days out to make a mini-holiday for ourselves. As yesterday was the first day of August, I did not forget to say ‘White Rabbits’ (actually repeated three times) as soon as I awoke. People say ‘white rabbits’ on the first day of each month as a traditional superstition to bring good luck, ensure protection, and ward off negativity but it is very much associated with one’s childhood years. The weekend  promises to be a quiet one for me but my American friend and I will enjoy a weekend meal together which is becoming a little ritual shared between us. We met the day before yesterday and eagerly communicated the news of the day. My friend had just enjoyed a really enervating swim for the first time in years and felt that it eased her musculature whilst I was still excited about the very enjoyable first meeting of the Philosophy group I have just joined, Although rain seems a long way away, the weather has certainly drifted several degrees cooler but as a nation, we are watching with a fascinated horror the progress of the wild fires in Spain and in France and although we still have a large heathland fire in Suffolk it does match the ferocity of the fires seen in Spain. I ask myself the question of what damage is being wrought to European economies and of course the ecological damage might last for a decade even before we start to consider a pattern of extremely hot summers in the years to come. August is always a quiet month in domestic political terms as the politicians as well as the general population think about holidays and the like but the new government appears to have ‘hit the ground running’ with a series of popular measures. But of course everything has to be paid for and I am reminded of the 18th century French sage who observed  that the art of taxation ‘was like extracting feathers from a goose with the least amount of hissing’ Yesterday in our Philosophy group discussion, we were wondering  aloud whether we ought to consider other measures of a nation’s well-being other  than the very crude ‘Gross Domestic Product’ and also wondered aloud whether the pursuit of economic growth was still appropriate for mature industrial economies such as ours. The stark fact remains that as the data from the Office for National Statistics and independent groups like the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirm that UK living standards have experienced historic stagnation. Typical household disposable income has barely grown since the 2008 financial crisis, making it the weakest multi-year period for income growth in generations.

As soon as I had got myself up and dressed this morning, and before I had breakfasted, I made my way into town in order to pick up my supplement-heavy copy of ‘The Times‘ before they all disappeared. After a chat with one of the supermarket staff I know well, I made my way back hone but spotted my Irish friends so I approached them in the car so that we could have a good chat. As soon as other friends return from holiday, we may have a get together for a little summer party. At home, I processed a machine full of washing including the two new shirts I had purchased the other day. I also spent some time carefully washing my University of Manchester scarf which is now 60 years old and I doubt has ever seen the inside of a washing machine. Today I gave it a soak in some tepid water in a bucket and used some washing liquid designed for delicates. Then after a couple of rinses, I dried it in a towel (as internet instructions recommended) and then put it out on the line with all of the other washing. I have learnt, a little too late, that there is a way to prevent clothes from going  ‘crisp’ when air dried. To prevent air-dried clothes from getting stiff, one needs to use less detergent, add white vinegar to the rinse cycle, and shake out each garment vigorously before and after hanging. After two or three hours in the sun, though, I have rescued the woollen scarf from the line and hope to finish off the drying process carefully and slowly within the house. In the late morning, my American friend called around with some of the supplies for the meal which we are going to jointly cook tomorrow. We are treating ourselves to some duck and I have consulted the internet to find the ingredients for a good orange sauce so that we can have ‘duck a l’orange’ and I can get these tomorrow morning after I have attended the church service and washed the car. Later on in the early evening, we are going to have our general constitutional walk in the park when the day has cooled down a little and there is a generally relaxed feeling to the day. This is becoming a routine for us to which we both look forward and slightly resembles the ‘paseo’ in Spain. The paseo is a cherished cultural tradition in Spain where neighbours, couples, and families take a slow, relaxed evening stroll through town streets, plazas, or promenades before a late dinner. It is a time to connect with the community, catch up on news, and enjoy the cooler air after the heat of the day.

We awoke yesterday morning to the news that the huge heath fire fire in Susses at Dunwich Heath was still burning and every resource was being used to contain it. The location of the fire quite near to the coast meant that the fire was constantly fanned by seaside breezes – on the other hand, I assume that the water-bearing helicopters could replenish their supplies quite readily. The impact of this fire on the native flora and fauna is tremendous and the fire itself could take some months to completely extinguish if it creeps underground. Fire chiefs think it may take as long as 36 hours for the fire to be brought under control. Wildlife managers said it was likely to take ‘more than a decade’ for the habitat, which is home to rare species including the nightjars and the Dartford warbler, to recover. Dunwich Heath was previously identified as a high-risk area for wildfires and has suffered blazes in the past. Only last month, the local authority and the National Trust (NT) launched a campaign urging people to exercise care while visiting. The other huge bit of news to hit the headlines yesterday was the news of the European response  to the plans of FIFA to spin off and sell commercial rights of the World Cup to a private company run by one of Trump’s relatives.  European nations have agreed to boycott the World Cup if Gianni Infantino goes ahead with selling off part of the tournament to private investors. UEFA nations were due to hold an emergency meeting virtually this week to discuss their opposition to FIFA’s attempt to launch a new commercial company with external investment, a source said. FIFA confirmed on Tuesday Infantino wants to launch a subsidiary worth $20bn (£15bn) and sell off more than 20% of the new FIFA Forward Enterprise by raising $4.2bn (£3.16bn). The plans and way they have emerged provoked renewed fury within UEFA at how Infantino is running FIFA. It is understood the Football Association was completely unaware of the plans before the rushed announcement by FIFA. Relationships between UEFA and FIFA have been bad for some time and whilst the number of European nations within UUFA exceeds 50, the number who make up FIFA is over 200. So it is quite possible that FIFA might press ahead with their controversial plans without the European footballing nations but the World Cup as a whole would become a nonsense. One is left with the feeling that holding the World Cup in America was one of the worst things that could happen to the game as the whole event is now subject to massive commercialisation. One ‘innovation’ which has gone down very badly is the introduction of ‘hydration’ breaks half way through each half, approximately 22 minutes into each half. Whilst these breaks are theoretically introduced to enhance player safety, it is being noted that the breaks made the game of association football more like American football with four quarters instead  of two halves. Advertisers were relishing the opportunities provided by these commercial breaks and the situation was compounded when managers and trainers came onto the pitch to discuss strategy and tactics face-to-face with their players during the break. Analysts noted that goals often ensured immediately after a break and the whole innovation was breaking the dynamic of the game of football as we have to know it around the world.

In the morning, I attended my first meeting of the U3A Philosophy  group and we held our meeting in the training room of one of our local supermarkets. There were about nine of us altogether, split almost equally between men and women but many of us had a background in education, training or the health service. The meeting proved to be high enjoyable and although we started off on the topic of ‘The philosopher Michael Sandel and the Morality of the Market’ we drifted off topic quite a lot into what proved to be very interesting discussions. The collective view around which we achieved a consensus quite early was that the basis of ‘the good life’ was not a slavish adherence to the norms and ethics of the market place but a smaller, more community based approach to living in which there was a much more equal exchange of goods and services. Almost inevitably, our own life experiences coloured the nature of own own individual contributions but what as so enjoyable was finding out that many of my fellow group members had left school and ‘worked their way’ up their various professions without the benefit of a university education. Unfortunately, I will miss the next meeting of the month which is held on the last Friday of each month as I shall be away in Yorkshire but I indicated to the convenor how much I had enjoyed the experience of this morning and I would look forward to future meetings of the group. Eventually, I will need to suggest and to introduce a topic of my own and this may be several meetings ahead but on the spur of the moment I would opt for a broad topic such as ‘What constitutes the nature of Evidence‘ and into this I could bring a discussion of the nature of scientific evidence and the regard (or rather lack of it) which abounds in so much of our political and social life. I took the opportunity to buy some things that are not available in my usual supermarket and then returned home to cook myself a light lunch of some boiled eggs followed by some fruit. This evening, my American friend and I are going to share a meal of some fresh hake, quickly pan fried and served on a bed of salad which is fast and easy to prepare but a nice treat for us at the end of the week. My friend was going off to a swimming session to which she was being re-introduced after a gap of some years so no doubt we can enjoy recounting our various experiences of the morning to each other. Not many people realise that Spain has laid claim to a couple of enclaves on the North African post, surrounded by modern day Morocco. Ceuta and Melilla represent the European Union’s only land border with Africa. Spanish authorities have increased security around the enclaves in recent years through increased surveillance, barrier reinforcement, and improved bilateral relations with Morocco, but people continue to attempt to cross. The number of migrants who entered Ceuta yesterday has risen to 60,000, as 34 confirmed dead. That is equivalent to 70% of the city’s regular population.  The apparent temporary collapse of the territory’s border has led to a wave of condemnation by European leaders.  So we think that we have problems with the ingress of boat crossings across the English Channel!

There was a news item this morning which was an interesting reflection of how life is changing on how High Streets and this was a story about banking. Some Banks (such as Halifax, Barclays, HSBC) are losing customers at an enormous rate whilst the biggest gainer has been the building society, Nationwide, who are even offering a £100 bonus to their loyal customers this year. Lloyds Banking Group has announced it is axing the Halifax brand, scrubbing the 173-year-old former building society’s name from UK high streets and we are facing a situation in which some rural communities and the elderly are finding it more and more difficult to get access to their own money. To some extent there is a vicious circle in play here because as a response to falling customer numbers, banks withdraw their High Street presence and this further depresses the available demand. The government are sufficiently worried by this change to the High Streets that they, together with the banking industry, are actively considering banking ‘hubs’ to provide basic services  to customers.  By the time we factor in the effects of climate change, oil price rises following the unresolved Ukrainian and Iran conflicts and the absence of long term growth, then the prospects for our High Streets remain quite bleak. Returning to the issue of social care costs, I noticed yesterday that ‘The Times’ had published a detailed analysis of how this problem is tackled in many countries across the world. So other mature industrial democracies, including those with a very rapidly ageing population such as Japan, have managed to come up with solutions and Britain does not fare at all well compared with many other  countries. The author of one of the most authoritative reports on this subject some fifteen years ago, Andrew Dilnot, was interviewed and he was singing the praises of the Australian model in which individuals do make a contribution but it is capped at a level which does not wipe out life time savings. In our own country, we had a proposal several years ago for a social care levy to raise money specifically. for the care costs of the elderly and I think this is surely the only practicable solution to the funding problem. To try to fund social care directly from taxation would withdraw money from other avenues where it is desperately needed so, in my mind, the raising of money from all of us from middle age onwards is the only sensible long-term solution and it is to the credit of other countries that this has been realised and schemes have been in place for years. I am increasingly led to the view that we in the UK are incredibly short term in our thinking and do not adequately plan for the future. We could exemplify these across a range of institutions (oil storage facilities, transport infrastructure, our National Grid, water storage etc, etc) and we just seem to bundle along from one short term crisis to the next. Perhaps there is a case for a National Infrastructure Commission to designate some long term projects to which all of the major political parties should be committed and have a ‘buy in’.

In the morning, I attended my Tai Chi class as normal, but we are all bereft of the coffee bar area which used to be our refuge after the class but is now closed for its summer refurbishment. So together with my ex-bank manager friend, we strolled the short distance into town, and we enjoyed a coffee in my favourite ‘Horse Sanctuary’ outlet. Afterwards I strolled back along the High Street and popped into the Oxfam charity shop to see if they had anything upon which my eye might alight. But today was my lucky day because I espied a rail with some long-sleeved men’s shirts and was delighted to find a couple that exactly my size and style and were originally Marks and Spencer regular fit and which claimed to be non-iron. At £3 each, they were evidently a bargain and now I need to go along my rail and dispense with these where the collar and/or cuffs are so worn that they either have to be thrown away or kept in a special place where I put shirts that I use for particularly dirty jobs such as gardening or painting where frankly their condition is unimportant. Walking along he High Street, it actually started raining and although I was without a coat, the cool breeze and very gentle rain were a real pleasure through which to walk. Apart from one night time shower, this must be one of the first rainfalls we have experienced for what seems like a couple of months now. When I got home and restored myself with a ‘proper’ coffee, I made myself some lunch in what turned out to be vegetarian affair with a portion of quiche alongside which I stir-fried some  onions, peppers, tomatoes, and even enhanced with some par-boiled broccoli. After lunch, I amused myself listening to Mary Trump who is Donald Trump’s niece who is not only a trained psychologist but is also party to other members pf the Trump family, including her own grandfather who suffered from Alzheimer’s. Mary Trump is one of her uncle’s sternest critics and is regularly invited onto the media to give an opinion on the up-to-date nature of Trump’s decline. One illustration which Trump has posted is himself in a Superman type pose on the crags of Mount Rushmore where he appears to be offering a helping hand to George Washington which I suppose indicates his megalomania allied with narcissism. During the course of the afternoon, I came across an interesting bit of video explaining how at some point in the future, sodium ion technology might take over from the lithium which has powered so many of our devices for the past decade or so. Sodium ion has the advantage that sodium (salt) is so abundant and readily available and works much better at low temperatures but less charge is delivered  per cell.  But lithium technology benefits from the advantage of being manufactured at an enormous scale and with some clever software is managing to overcome some of its disadvantages. So we will shall not be seeing sodium ion technology in our electric vehicles just yet but it remains a technology whose time is yet to come. One manufacturer has put both lithium and sodium ion technology in the battery pack with software to switch between them. China decisively leads America in battery technology, dominating manufacturing scale, raw material processing, and supply chain control. China commands 70% to 90% of the global lithium-ion battery value chain and produces battery packs at prices over 40% cheaper than in the U.S.

The domestic news today is that Andy Burnham has invited other party leaders to a discussion on an all-party basis on the dilemma on how to organise and to fund social care costs. Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, will only participate in talks on the condition that no taxes will rise which, in effect, is not participating in the talks. It has emerged in the last few days that Andy Burnham’s own father has dementia, is in a care home and does not know that his own son now occupies the role of Prime Minister.  As it is in the very earliest  days of the new government, I do not envisage how a fully worked out and costed plan can be presented to the nation to consider, but after this issue has been ‘kicked into the long grass’ by governments for about the last 15 years I am not very hopeful of anything very substantive emerging in the course of the day. Today should turn out to be a quiet day and my normal visit to the Methodist Centre has been put into abeyance whilst the centre is closed for refurbishment as is normal during the summer period. I have received new details about the Philosophy group in which I am due to participate at the end of the week but there will be one another new member joining the group as well as myself so am intrigued how the session will work out. All I can say at this stage is that the convenor is going out of her way to give full details of the venue and the organisation of the programme and I anticipate that it may prove to be a ‘listen and learn’ experience for me. The evening before last, I walked with my American friend in the park and we enjoy the fresh evening air, the stroll round the lake and the sharing of the frustrations of life we may have experienced during the day. We may well be experiencing the last of the series of heatwaves during the day and although temperatures have moderated somewhat from the highs of a week or so ago, there is still no prospect of any rainfall for another week. All of this means that us regular grass mowers have been spared this task for the past few weeks and the whole townscape has taken on a crisp look as the green verges have been replaced by a yellowy-brown straw colour wherever one looks. I normally go shopping mid-week and my domestic help has given me notice of some new lines in fresh fish that my local supermarket may well be stocking. On the occasions that I buy wet fish, I pan fry it lightly for about 3 minutes a side and then serve it on a bed of lettuce which sounds a bit odd but which is actually tastier and more appetising than it sounds. I must say that I am getting slightly fed up with a diet of salad or salad variations but when the weather has been so hot, there is a strong disinclination to prepare hot meals. When I did my usual weekly shop, then six items which  were on my shopping list were either not on the shelves or sold out and although the items were hardly esoteric, I have to make a decision whether to do without, postpone my purchase or choose a substitute. To be charitable to the supermarket concerned, it could be that going at a quiet time of the week is also going at a time when the shelves are not well stocked. Almost on principal, I avoid the units where shoppers check out their own provisions  and in a queue of about three of four baskets with well-laden trollies as there is typically only one manned till. When I got home, I cooked myself a meat-and-veg type meal, just for a change as much as anything else.

The much heralded speech by Andy Burnham revealed  three policies none of them earth shattering. During his speech on social care, the prime minister set out three key commitments: he brought forward the review into social care to summer 2027, he pledged to reform the social care workforce ‘to lift it closer to NHS standards’ and also to work more collaboratively on the issue. But all of this is not saying very much and the really big question of finance for the sector is avoided. I really think that the time has come for a big initiative and not for tinkering around the edges as it were, but as successive governments have ‘de facto’ forced more families to sell their family homes in order to fund  the residential care for their aged relatives, cannot see how this is going to be redressed without a major initiative  of the type I have outlined previously where the whole population get used to contributing to a fund for about thirty five years to fund the undoubted expense of care in later life. In the meanwhile, there are some massive iniquities built into the system because if one is diagnosed with cancer then curative or palliative care is offered on the NHS whereas in the case of dementia, the NHS practically denies this as a ‘social’ and not a medical need and hence support for dementia patients is extremely limited. I occasionally let YouTube offer me the results of liberal American media podcasts in which senior members of the Trump administration are often attacked by vociferous and well informed Democrat members of Congress. Almost inevitably, the members of the Trump administration acquit themselves very badly by prevaricating, refusing to answer the questions directed at thenm truthfully or counter-attacking with irrelevancies. But then the Democrat members run out of their allotted time for questioning and no adverse consequences seem to flow. Th contrast between these hearings and the UK Parliamentary select committees is stark because in the UK system a minister refusing to answer a question truthfully or massively evading would be called in contempt of Parliament. However, even the UK sanctions are applied. What is more, if any committee were to report to the House that it believed a contempt had been committed, and the House agreed, it remains unclear what sanctions it would have at its disposal. Historically, those found guilty of contempt could be fined or imprisoned, but those sanctions have not been used by the Commons since 1666 and 1880 respectively. For all sorts of practical, legal and constitutional reasons, it is highly doubtful that the modern House would seriously consider this but in the US, in contrast to the UK, it appears that congressional committees are flouted almost with impunity.

Two news items caught my attention yesterday morning. The first of these was a report of a recent study which showed that industrial poultry farming has led to a more than 100-fold increase in the spread of a bacteria causing food poisoning, scientists have discovered. Campylobacter is the most common bacterial cause of diarrhoea worldwide, resulting in 3.5 times as many upset stomach cases in the UK each year as all other monitored food borne bacteria. The huge global expansion of chicken farming over recent decades has created ideal conditions for the bacterium to spread and adopt new tactics to survive, a study by Ineos Oxford Institute researchers at the University of Oxford found. The scientists said the rapid expansion of global chicken numbers, increasing seven-fold to about 31 billion birds since the 1960s, had allowed bacteria from wild birds to circulate in the poultry population. This is quite disturbing news and is one of the reasons why I am always a little wary of chicken meat and will tend to overcook it when it comes to purchasing my regular weekly joint.  The second big announcement today was the government’s plans to tackle the huge ‘Neets’ problem (young people ‘Not in Employment, Education or Training’).The government is proposing that from Year 10, pupils in England will be able to combine core subjects like English and maths with technical education based on the demands of local employers. This will pair skills training with work experience places. These pathways will be introduced from September 2028. The government will prioritise funding towards high-quality technical education and practical routes into work, and education inspectorate Ofsted will also change the way it measures performance, recognising schools that support children to develop the skills local employers need. The new pathways will be created in partnership between regional mayors, local leaders, schools, colleges and employers. It marks a big shift from the Blair-era policy of wanting as many children as possible to go to university. This sounds like  an excellent  policy shift and some would argue is long overdue – but the benefits may take years before results will come through, mainly the prospect of a university  education appear less than a glittering prize when faced with a debt in excess of £50k, great difficulty in entering the housing market and job prospects that seem to be diminishing day by day Turning to domestic matters, I started to think about my forthcoming trip to Yorkshire at the end of August to see my relatives and to have a little break at the same time. The evening before last was the date when some pension monies flowed into my account so  I immediately set to work ordering rai tickets for the journey. Doing this a month before the journey  proved to be highly advantageous and I was able to secure some excellent prices by using my preferred supplier of railway tickets and taking advantage of discount cards. So I am more than happy to have got these tickets purchased ad I have been sent all the QR codes so that all of the data is now held on my phone although I have taken the precaution of running off some paper copies with the QR codes in case my phone gets mislaid).At the same time, I checked my Expedia booking to make sure my hotel reservations, made last June, are still in place which indeed they are, with a reassuring receipt  being provided which indicates that the hotel accommodation is paid for. I have reminded my sister that I shall be coming up to Yorkshire to help to celebrate her birthday at the end of August but will leave the purchase of a present until a day or so beforehand so that it doesn’t have to get packed. 

After my customary chat with my domestic help, I made my way down to my Pilates class where there were only four of us in the session (normal for this class as it is in the middle of the day ad not convenient for many people) and then returned home to make myself a mackerel salad. After lunch and a little TV watching, I thought I would brave the websites and attempt to make a booking for a holiday in La Coruna in Northern Spain for the middle of next February and managed to make bookings for my American friend and myself at what I think is a reasonable price. It is so long since I have flown and when I did it was from London Airports rather than Birmingham and to the flight charges I would need to add on the car parking and petrol costs so it is a little difficult to work out whether I have a really good deal or not. I have avoided the really cheap airlines and chosen options that allow more than just cabin luggage on board. But I have booked the whole package via Expedia and I am delighted to have secured accommodation in my really favourite hotel in A Coruna (were the staff used to know Meg and I quite well) and which, as it by the sea, affords a wonderful walk along the promenade and a a taxi almost whenever you need one (with at least a dozen parked in the street adjacent to the hotel) So this and proximity to some of my favourite haunts (bars, restaurants etc) makes me feel very happy and I do not mind if I paid a hundred pounds or so over the odds for the pleasure that it will give. I also took out comprehensive insurance as an extra for myself and a friend and this should cover medical emergencies, hotel cancellations and so on. Hopefully, this will help to draw the teeth of the winter a little  and I have arranged some dates which includes two complete weekends which is when we can see our friends (hopefully) and with some interesting trips in prospect for us both in between.

In the days after the conclusion of the World Cup, another great FIFA scandal is unfolding before our eyes. European nations are discussing boycotting the World Cup if Gianni Infantino pushes ahead with plans to sell off part of FIFA to private investors, Sky News can reveal. UEFA nations will hold an emergency meeting virtually this week to discuss their opposition to FIFA’s attempt to launch a new commercial company with external investment, a source said. It was only after UEFA went public with concerns about plans it was hearing that FIFA confirmed its president Infantino wants to launch a subsidiary worth $20bn (£15bn) and sell off more than 20% of the new FIFA Forward Enterprise by raising $4.2bn (£3.16bn). It is understood the Football Association was completely unaware of the plans before Tuesday’s rushed announcement by FIFA. FIFA did not raise the landmark strategy during meetings with football associations in New York on the eve of the World Cup final. The plans and way they have emerged provoked renewed fury within UEFA at how Infantino is running FIFA. European football’s governing body said in a statement: ‘This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross. UEFA takes it extremely seriously.’

Yesterday proved to be an interesting day. It was the retirement celebration of a well respected and loved local Methodist minister/superintendent who my American friend and I both knew. We had prearranged that we would both attend this event as my friend, together  with other female members of the Methodist community, were going to bring along food for a pre-service get together. At this event, we got into conversation with a fascinating parishioner whose life had been colourful as her father was Danish but her mother a (white Kenyan) although she herself was born, by accident, in Birmingham. The tea time event lasted an hour and a half which was followed by a leaving service in which the meeting hall (serving as a church) which was packed to the rafters. This was a very Methodist affair with five hymns sung lustily but the words displayed on screens to assist the singing without hymn books. The ‘service’ consisted of some scriptural readings, many reminiscences and tributes (including one from his ancient mother) and words rom other local Methodist ministers with whom he had shared his ministry during the years. The minister himself I happened to know has a very poorly wife but he was retiring to Scarborough in North Yorkshire which is the seaside town in which I used to holiday  (for one day trip in the year). When leaving, I gave him my business card and quickly outlined to him the impact on my life of ‘Uncle Jim’ who was a very well known and respected Anglican priest. Sadly, as he died in 1962/63 and the church at which he officiated was pulled down in 1975, any historical records are extraordinarily sparse but I have managed to locate on my phone a photograph of his gravestone but with no dates or other details. As my ‘Uncle Jim’ as my sister and I affectionately knew him died in about 1963 and this was over sixty years ago, then it is not surprising that the historical record is so thin. But I remember well that we could not walk for a few yards down the street without a parishioner engaging  him in conversation as he was so well known and loved. Reading between the lines, I think he was the man that my mother ought to have married but did not and, if she had, I may not have even existed. However, returning to the here and now, I have the prospect of both a quiet week in front of me but also another heatwave but hopefully not as intense as in the recent past.  Normal ‘social’ events are rather put on hold as we approach the breaking up of the schools and the holiday  season but I have my first meeting of the U3A Philosophy group to which I am looking forward at the end of the week. The intense heat means that any grass in the area has been reduced to a straw looking, brown crisp and although it will recover in time (one hopes), in the meantime it means that the regular ritual of grass cutting is put into abeyance.  When, and if, the weather cools down somewhat I hope to resume a regular walk down into town but in the intense heat I have argued that ‘discretion is the better part of valour’ and taken a journey by car rather than on foot to pick up my daily newspaper. Although I have a house stuffed full of books, I was tempted in the Methodist Centre book collection to buy an excellent hardback book on ‘Nutrition for Life’ which is copiously illustrated, very informative and had an original selling price of £18 when it was first published under the DK imprimatur some 20 years ago. My American friend are I are  going to have a friendly fight over who reads which relevant sections first but at first sight, it contains a mine of well written material.

Conscious of the fact that I have not been walking down into town as I used to do every day, I resolved to make amends and made the journey down to Waitrose on foot. There I picked  my newspaper and then availed myself of the ‘free’ coffee offered to cardholders and then made the journey back, pausing to have a chat with two intermediate acquaintances  who I know live down the road. I cooked a meat and two veg type meal but to attempt  to limit the carbohydrate load,  I parboiled a few cubes of potato that had been soaking in water overnight together with a quartered onion and then finished them off with a quick toss in good olive oil and then had a meal pf this with beef slices in an onion gravy and some broccoli. After lunch,  I sampled a new comedy style programme which my son and daughter-n-law had told me about called ‘Anne Android’ and is the amusing tale of the encounters between a recently widowed lady and a robot procured by her son to assist in daily activities. The humour is droll and filled with some pathos and already it has quite a following across the BBC. One viewer has offered the comment that beneath the comedy, it says a lot about the world we are heading towards with AI, ageing, loneliness, grief, older children moving on (or not!), and what technology can and cannot replace when it comes to real human connection. Having seen the first episode of the series, I shall probably stick with it for a bit so see how the remaining episodes unfold. I made use of the fine weather to peg out a whole line full of washing to dry and I know that no rainfall is expected tonight. We learn this afternoon of the intensifying fires sweeping across France and Spain and more than 250,000 people have been evacuated in France, while more than 116,000 people in Spain have had to leave their homes, the authorities have said. The flames are only seven miles from Bordeaux and fires have ravaged the Cap Ferret peninsula on France’s Atlantic coast and advanced towards the heart of the country’s winelands- it has so far burnt through 42,000 hectares of land. The French are fighting on a huge front and may be just about holding the raging fires at bay, but a giant fire thunderstorm fuelled by its own winds and lightning has formed in the Gironde region of southwest France, making a delicate situation more precarious.  The seriousness of all of this is hard to over-estimate and one wonders about the damage to the French, Spanish and European economy that will result.

When I awoke yesterday morning, it was to the pleasant surprise that we had some rain during the night. It is always difficult to assess exactly how much rain we had actually received but the paving slabs were wet and thee were some light rain clouds scudding across the sky. On getting up, I reminded myself to change the cold water in which the prepared potatoes had been sitting all night to reduce their starch content. Opinion seems to be divided as to whether this reduces the huge starch content by very much but I thought I would have just a few cubes of potato par-boiled and then finished off with a little oil together with an equal quantity of onion. I hear from the news this morning  that after one week in office, Andy Burnham, is due to unveil his plans for a National Care Service. This decision has been put off by successive governments for literally decades. The most authoritative report on this subject – the Dilnot report  was published 15 years ago but all govenments have baulked at the cost. There is a rising recognition that some of the costs of particularly residential care should be borne by people themselves but at a capped limit to ensure that the vast proportion  of the value locked within a house should not be used for social care deployed on the elderly person.  In the past, a Tory government suggested a cap of £75,000 but the trouble about a figure  like this is that it might  represent one third of the total value of a house in poorer pats of the community/country but be just a pin prick in prosperous parts of the country where house prices are so much higher. Taking a proportion of assets, such as a house, may sound to be the solution but this fails the test of fairness were individuals and families  are charged different costs for the same service. I will be interesting to see what solution will be forthcoming to square this particular circle but in any event one can be assured that the middle classes who may be asked to pay more will shout the loudest in protest. Now the chairman of ICI used to say ‘Do not bring me problems, bring me solutions’ so, in this spirit, I will put forward my own suggestions for the funding of social care. I start off with two axioms. The first of these is that we can all expect to live to old age, and perhaps even extreme old age, and probably in excess of the age at which parents died (on average) So if we are used to paying for pensions in our old age, why should we not make provision for or own old age as well. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced the world’s first state pension system in 1889, targeting workers aged 70 and older to curb socialism and ease industrial poverty which was nearly 140 years ago and the Germans fund old age with extra payments from those middle aged and older. My second axiom is that we can afford anything if we start saving soon enough  and for long enough  periods of time. So my proposition is as follows: that we charge almost everybody in the society with a compulsory level of £2,000 a year (about £167 a month) To put this amount into context, the average cost of keeping one medium sized Cocker Spaniel is approximately £46 per month in vet plan and insurance (the vet plan covers flea and worming treatment, plus vaccinations) and food costs of around £40 a month so this amounts to over £1,000 a year i.e. half the cost of a social care levy. I would  levy the £2,000 on practically the whole population, even if in receipt of benefits by reducing the amount of benefit payable and the population would pay this from the age of 35 until they were 70 i.e. just past retirement age and so, in round terms, this would build up an individual social care ‘pot’ of £100,000 in round terms. Now let us assume that average residential care costs are of the order of £65k a year, then the accumulated ‘pot’ can be run down at the rate of £20k a year which, with the average pension of £10k a year means that £30k of the £65k annual cost will be paid for by the individual with the government providing the other half.  Any house or capital that the individual has built up for themselves will be retained so there is no question of having to sell one’s house to pay for care fees (as has happened four times in the case of my immediate family, as it happens) I think that most of the population would regard it as ‘fair’ that they have to contribute to the cost of their own old age social care provided that the government was seen as doing ‘its bit’ and that retained the house that one has paid for during all one’s life.  Of course, one can play around  and model somewhat different scenarios with these figures – for example, could take the average length  of stay in a residential home at being 2.5 years in which case the contribution from the ‘saved’ pot would be £40k and with £10 of pension, this £50k per year would  then be 75% of the total cost. Now won’t it be interesting to see what kind of scheme the government comes up in the next few days but I reckon that it will not be as simple or as comprehensive as the scheme I have outlined above.

After the church service was over. I chatted with some fellow parishioners and was saddened to learn of the death of a parisoner with whom I had served alongside on the Church Parochial council for a time. He seems to have had a series of episodes of treatment in hospital followed by a rapid discharge and then an altogether not unexpected readmission. I was saddened to learn that his final weeks might have been anything but peaceful. After I had washed the car and bought a Sunday newspaper, I came home and watched again an episode of the ‘Pilgrimage’ series, this time focusing on a journey  through some of the Celtic sites of North Wales and although I had seen it before, it is always quite interesting to see the voyages of self discovery. I cooked mself a small meal of chicken and some stir fry as in the late afternoon I am due to accompany my American friend for a ‘leaving do’ for one of the Methodist circuit ministers whom we both happen to like and to know quite well.

I got up at yesterday morning at what for me was an unprecedentedly late time as it was approaching 9.00am. But I reasoned that my body was telling me that it was compensating for the 5.45 start to the day that I had experienced the day before when I had got up early for the gastroenterology procedure. The slight side effects that I had experienced of a slightly tender gastric area had subsided but as the day progresses, I may have lighter meals during the day to assist in the recovery process.  I must say that of the several times I have had this procedure, this was least unpleasant mainly, I suspect, as the sedative medication administered through a cannula in my arm seemed to be so effective.  Now I need to wait for a couple of weeks to see what the histological report indicates of the polyp that was removed. Thinking about the future, I did a quick AI search on what the normal individual can do to prevent the formation of polyps in the gut and discovered the following, most of which I already knew  and which advice I had been trying to follow. While gastrointestinal polyps cannot be entirely prevented, you can lower your risk by eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and getting routine screenings. Dietary habits include eating more fibre, choosing fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains to help waste move smoothly through the gut, cutting down on red meat, processed meats, and high-fat foods and consuming adequate calcium from foods like dairy or dark leafy greens. Lifestyle choices include the cessation of all tobacco products, reducing or avoid alcoholic drinks and exercising most days of the week and work to maintain a healthy body weight. Although this information is readily available on the web and should be percolating through the knowledge base of the general population, I ask myself the question of whether the government could do more so that the NHS becomes as much concerned with disease prevention as with disease treatment.If I were the Minister for Health in any government, I would get supermarkets to have leaflets prominently available to encourage the population to eat more healthily and to promote health giving foods and to restrict the availability of unhealthy junk foods. There are at least two reasons why this would never happen, the most obvious of which the government would be accused of being the ‘Nanny State’ But a more serious and contentious issue is that supermarkets and food manufacturers would have to promote healthier foods and restrict the availability of unhealthy ones and this would have an immediate and probably deleterious effects upon profits. Taking the axiom that supermarkets devote more space to foods with a higher profit margins, then I never cease to be dismayed by how much space is devoted to crisps (think how many crisps can be made from one industrially thinly sliced potato) which  are then the bearers of salt and hydrogenated fats. Hydrogenated fats are created by adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to turn them into solid fats. This process increases shelf life and stability but creates trans fats, which raise bad (LDL) cholesterol and lower good (HDL) cholesterol, significantly increasing heart disease risk. On a complete flight of fancy, I would then make the annualised cost of all endoscopies to treat possibly gastrointestinal disease payable not from profits but charged to salaries and bonuses of those in charge of or supermarkets and food manufacturing industries. Supermarkets have a strong commercial interest in selling junk food because these ultra-processed items offer long shelf lives, withstand supply chains easily, and drive impulse purchases that boost overall store revenue. Returning to a more mundane world, after getting up I immediately went down into town to pick up a copy of my newspaper which, heavy with supplements at the weekend, soon fly off the shelves. and returned home to enjoy the company of my son and daughter-in-law who had come to check up on me after my hospital visit the day before. My American friend is due to call around at lunch time and I am hoping to persuade her to watch the classic black and film Casablanca which will be shown for the umpteenth time but which film I never tire of a repeat viewing. 

In the afternoon, my American friend did call around and we carried on watching together the middle episodes of Vera Britten’s ‘Testament of Youth’ which was essentially broadcast by the BBC as a five part series. These middle episodes were particularly emotionally compelling, particularly the heart rending scene in which Vera Britten was in a hotel expecting to see Roland the following day when a marriage proposal was expected (as he had a week’s leave) only to receive the news that he was seriously wounded in the conflict and died of his wounds about a day later. Upon this news, Vera became a nurse and subsequently was posted overseas to administer to the many battlefield casualties. At home, in Europe, wildfires are sweeping across the continent affecting particularly France and Spain where more than 250,000 have been had to flee their homes. In the UK, we have a massive fire in the Cairngorms in which hundreds have been evacuated but this does not rival the ferocity of the wildfires on the continental land mass but where thousands acres of land are as dry as tinder perhaps there we are witnessing the inevitable consequence of climate change. On this subject, I recently saw a videoclip in which the melting of some of the glaciers in Greenland may well be impacting upon the normal flows of warm and cold currents on the North Atlantic ocean which, in turn, impacts upon the jet stream several  miles above it which in turn can facilitate the ingress of hot Saharan air across Europe. Such is the complexity of climate change which depends upon sophisticated measuring of ocean depths and even more  sophisticated computer modelling but it may well be that the climate change deniers are well and truly silenced. However, climate change deniers are now shifting their ground from outright denying the existence of global warming to attacking transition policies, promoting ‘doomism,’ and claiming that green energy is unfeasible. Rather than arguing that the Earth is not warming, modern skeptical discourse focuses on new, delay-oriented narratives. Although there may be a slight smattering of rain in the next day or so, it looks as though there will be plenty more very warm days until the very end of the month and so we might have to wait even longer for the long and sustained downpour for which many of us are earnestly hoping.

We wake up this morning to the unwelcome news that the UK may be dragged into the conflict of the US with Iran. After a thirteenth day of strikes, the Iranians have warned the UK that the country may become a target as it is is allowing US forces to position  strike forces in US military bases on UK soil. Our Ministry of Defence has responded ‘robustly’ but a war is the last thing that the UK economy needs in its present fragile state. These threats may not come to anything but Iran has certainly attacked other allies of the US in the region so nothing can be ruled out at this stage. The predicted rain for the forthcoming weekend will arrive ‘for some’ but I do not think that the showers will extend as far as the Midlands and another hot week is forecast for the last week in July. We are now in a situation in whichever patch of grass you see has been turned into a straw colour and the grass even crunches when you walk upon it. Somehow, though, our park authorities have managed to keep our park on the green side and they will not have been watering but have evidently sown a very hardy grass seed in the dim and distant past. The recriminations in the Labour party are still continuing after the change in regime and some are urging that Andy Burnham should somehow build bridges to try to tap into the expertise of those who have lost office but the mechanism by which this might be done is far from clear. 

I actually awoke, assisted by the alarm, at 4.45 this morning. This is because I had an appointment in the Endoscopy department of a local treatment centre to have removed a polyp, harmless at the moment bit with the potential of turning nasty. Having been given strict instructions not to eat or drink anything for hours beforehand, we had to arrive at the clinic at 7.50 am and hence my American friend (who was taking me to the clinic) and I set off for the clinic at 7.00am. I imagined that when I arrived at the clinic I would be the first in the queue but was surprised to find about five other people also awaiting treatment.  In these procedures, various bits of paper work and some medical preliminaries are undertaken and the young nurse allocated to me explained that there were now about eight treatment booths so evidently the capacity had been massively expanded over just the last few years. I was offered and readily accepted the offer of sedation for the procedure and the doctor performing the procedure allowed me to continue to wear my earphones for the ancient iPhone 4 I use solely as a type of iPlayer on occasions such as these. I scarcely remember getting much beyond the first half of the Mozart track so whatever sedative was used must have been pretty powerful as in time the procedure must have been completed although it took anything between 20-30 minutes.  I did eventually look up the effects of the medication adminstered to me and  discovered is a fast-acting benzodiazepine used for sedation, anxiety relief, and seizure control. Primary effects include drowsiness, muscle relaxation, and anterograde amnesia which frequently causes patients to forget events that occur during and immediately after the drug’s administration. So bit by bit, I think things are improving in our NHS. My American friend was sent for after a short recovery period and then we went downstairs to eat a very much appreciated protein-rich breakfast. I was feeling just a little knocked out after the procedure but my American friend looked after me during the day as I had a quiet day of recovery. In all honesty I had not slept particularly well the night before so was pleased to have someone with me all day – in practice the NHS guidelines were I needed to have someone in attendance for about 10-12 hours and of course driving, drinking alcohol or operating machinery (including boiling a kettle!) was out-of-bounds. During the start of the day we started to watch Vera Britten’s ‘Testament of Youth’  and only  got about half way through the second episode before we broke off and cooked an evening meal together. In the early episodes the film vividly portrays the enthusiastically optimistic spirit in which individuals entered the Great War (as it became to be known) and the full horrors of fighting over appeared to be yards of ground will no doubt be well illustrated in later episodes. Vera Britten’s daughter was Shirley Williams who was to become a prominent figure in the post War Labour party and eventually became one of the ‘Gang of Four’ in the breakaway SDP, later SDLP.

It is being reported on ‘Sky News’ that Donald Trump may press for FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to lead the UN which is a proposition which sounds so fantastic it is hard to believe. Firstly the UN has its own procedures and protocols to determine who the next UN Secretary General is likely to be. But Trump senses an opening among a field that one insider described as seven lame candidates. The contenders include Chile’s socialist former president Michelle Bachelet, who could face US resistance, and Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, the current director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who could face concerns about the disputed Falkland Islands from the veto-holding UK. Trump’s concept would upend the anticipated selection of a candidate from Latin America or the Caribbean — a region last repped by secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru between 1982 and 1991. But multiple sources said that the UN’s soft policy of rotating the top job among geographic regions would not necessarily block Infantino and that it is possible he could pick up nominations from multiple countries. The point has to be made that the moral authority and freedom of manoeuvre exercised by the Secretary General of the UN seems sadly to have declined over the years. This has been coupled by a lack of willingness of the US to fund some of the UN’s activities of late. The exercise of the veto power by any one of the five permanent members (USA, Russia, China. France and Britain) means that serious action over major global issues is generally not forthcoming. Meanwhile the Iranian war rumbles on and the pessimist might conclude that this conflict could persist for months. America seems convinced that it can bomb its way into forcing concessions from Iran but every missile  and bomb that falls threatens to deepen Iranian resistance even more.