Sunday morning dawned, being the night after the Eurovision song finals held in Liverpool on behalf of the Ukraine. By all accounts, Liverpool seem to have done a very good job in staging the contest and, from what I could tell, things seemed to go without a hitch, electronic or otherwise. Needless to say, the bookies favourite (Sweden) won by a country mile and the UK entry was humiliatingly badly placed – not quite bottom place which was awarded to Germany but second bottom. Meg and I preferred to watch the Thomas Hardy film on another channel for the first two thirds of the show but what we saw of the last portion of it, each entry seemed a facsimilar of the other. I suppose we cannot put the clock back and put the accompanying video presentations back into the box but these seem and more elaborate on behalf of each of the contestants as the years roll by. So the final result came after a two part voting system which has been refined over the years. The Swedish victory was their seventh in the competition as a whole and the Swedish singer was a previous winner so this, too, made history.

This morning, we met with our University of Birmingham friend and spent a happy hour or so chatting. We were bemoaning the fact that in our professional lives and elsewhere, we seemed beset by procedures in which the process has to be followed (presumability to remove elements of variability) but the concomitant of this is that the area for what used to be the area of professional discretion has been reduced and reduced over the years. We particularly discussed an area common to us both in the discussions that were held by Boards of Examiners to award final degree results. This whole area has been so beset by algorithms of various kinds that the discretion that we used to aply based upon years of experience seemed to reduce year by year. Then our friend received a telephone call which meant that he needed to leave us a little more rapidly than planned so we made some arrangements to meet as usual next week.

This afternoon, Meg and I saw saw quite a heart-warmnig film (‘Tea with Mussolini’) in which Maggie Smith and Judy Dench played principal parts. We quite enjoyed this and then flipped over channels to watch the Womens FA Cup Final in which Chelsea scored the one and only winning goal against Manchester United (this being their third victory in three years). This was all too predictable. The men’s FA Cup Final is delayed from mid-May until the first week of June as the World Cup Final in Qatar in the winter has caused quite a bunching of the rest of the football schedule.

For dedicated followers of politics, civil war has broken out in the Tory party. We had the local election result a week ago which was disastrous for the Tories but then of course, normal politics was suspended whilst we had the Coronation of Charles III, the subsequent partying and concerts and the Bank Holiday. But now we are back to politics with a vengeance and the immediate source of the discontent is that Kemi Badenoch, the Trade Minister, has reneged upon the promise to repeal at least 4,000 pice of legislation before the end of the year. In theory, the civil service should have been combing through all of the legislation seeing what could be safely repealed and that which could not – in practice the enormity of this task was such that vital legislation protecting both workers’ rights and the environment could have been lost as the ‘baby is thrown out with the bathwater’. A little appreciated fact is that as part of our membership of the EU, the UK and the Germans, with the tacit acquiescence of the French effectively ran the EU – if there was legislation to which both Germany and the UK were opposed then the policy would be quietly ditched. So a lot of the 4,000 pieces of legislation we actually had a hand in framing and were not sufficiently unhappy with to occasion a veto. And, of course, the UK had negotiated a whole series of opt-outs across several important policy areas. I heard one Brexiteer infuriated that the UK government was not now going to ditch the 4,000 pieces of legislation claim that a lot of the legislation was ‘benign’ which begs the question whether they actually need to be repealed in the first place.

When I survey the planning board that we use to book forthcoming appointments, I observe that next week is going to be quite a busy week what with routine hospital appointments and visits to the house by our hairdresser and chiropodist. Over the years, we have built up a network of these services which are immensely useful to use but occasionally, as next week, all of these appointments tend to crowd in on top of each other. I am hoping that we have a spell of better weather so that I can get out and start to attack the areas of the garden that are crying out for a weeding and a tidy up but we seem to have had so much wet weather in the last few weeks that has prevented me from getting on top of these gardening activities.

When we got up this morning, Meg and I put ourselves in a good mood by listening to some stunning performances on a CD I had liberated from somewhere. These were ‘Best recordings of 2011’ or something similar and some of the artists were incredibly good e.g. Placido Domingo and Thomas Hampton singing the famous duet from Bizet’s ‘The Pearl Fishers’. So after this and breakfasting, we popped down into town a little early because after picking up the (bulky) Saturday newspapers, I needed to make a lightning visit into town to get some money out of an ATM. On the way back to the car, I very quickly scanned the CDs in our local Salvation Army charity shop. They were selling the CDs at 50p each or three for £1 but as one of them was a double CD, I actually got 4 for my £1.00 One of them was a collection of the classic piano recordings of Horowitz which could grace anybody’s collection. The other three were a mixture of classical and some ‘crossover’ artists which made for an interesting ‘light’ listening experience. As I type, I am listening to a hymn by the Benedictine nuns of Notre Dame which is out of my usual listening experience, I must say. Once we actually got as far as Waitrose, two of our regular friends were waiting for us and we were soon joined by our University of Birmingham friend. I had taken along some of the amusing birhday cards I had been sent to share the fun around a little and then then we got onto a variety of ‘Travellers tales'( (on my part) and a bit of ‘Did you know what..’ kind of story telling. I did rabbit on a little too long but it was one of those mornings when one story springs from another. After that it was a case of a bit of shop-up for some of the things that Waitrose sells but Aldi does not. When we got home, we had a special lunch as a treat for ourselves. Our domestic help had initially forgotten it was my birthday last Thursday so she raced around to buy some special boef bourbignone which she knows we particularly like, coupled with a sweet of rapberry panny cotta and a bottle of excellent Rioja. I think the idea was that instead of going out, Meg and I could enjoy a magnificent birthday meal at home – which we did. The meal was so good I immediately texted our friend in gratitude and she sent me back a photo of some double chocolate brownies she was preparing as a family treat whilst they wil be watching the Eurovision song contest this evening.

When I consulted the TV schedules for watching when we return from church this evening, I thought there was going to be a real clash – but one we can resolve. Tonight is the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest and I know that the UK song is to be performed last. This show goes on from 8.00 until midnight but of course the voting is often the most exciting part at the end of the evening. In the early part of the evening there is a showing of Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding Crowd‘ which we have seen several times before but can always be watched over and over again. So we can have a bit of high culture in the early part of the evening and then switch over for a bit of the ‘boom-bam-a-bam’ type of stuff which characterises practically every entry these days. I have a particular penchant for the more pensive ‘chanson’ type of contribution which is all too rare these days but which was typified par excellence by a past UK No. 1 in 1968 which was Mary Hopkin’s ‘Those were the Days‘ (but not actually a Eurovision winner).

The war in Ukraine may (or may not) be entering a critical phase. Perhaps as part of a general offensive, Ukraine has forced Russian troops to withdraw from the southern flank of the Bakhmut operation ‘in bad order’, highlighting a ‘severe shortage of credible combat units’, according to British military intelligence. Of course, all of this might just be positive Western military spin and the whole of this phase of the war does rather call into mind WW1 in which battles and enormous loss of life were fought over a few hundred yards of terrain. But if the accounts are more correct than incorrect, then the Ukrainians may well take heart from any recent advances, however small, and the stories of low morale amongst the Russian military personnel are neither new or surprising. Very strange things are happening in this war as the Russians seem to have ‘outsourced’ some of the conflict to a group of mercenaries known as the Wagner group which has recently been openly critical of both Putin and the Kremlin. The Wagner group seem to be demanding extra ammunitions or else threatening to withdraw from the immediate conflict zones but one cannot imagine divisions within the ‘enemy’ ranks bodes well for their eventual success. On the other hand, the Russians have had a long time during the winter to prepare defences like trenches in depth – again, very redolent of WWI but the irony of all of this is that the city at the centre of the hostilities (Bakhmut) does not seem to be of much strategic significance in any case.

Today is the day when our domestic help calls round and we are always pleased to see her. This was so particularly so today as she had come along bearing gifts, namely some goodies for us to make a meal inside the house as a birthday treat. Needless to say, this was a wonderful gift and we will look forward to preparing these ingredients for our Saturday lunchtime meal. After we had chatted for a little, we got ourselves ready to trot down to Waitrose where we generally have a coffee with our University of Birmingham friend. But we got a telephone call from him to say he was delayed within the house awaiting a parcel that was due to be delivered later on that morning. Working out the logistics, we decided it would be a better plan to meet tomorrow and that is what we are going to do. We then prepared a flask of coffee and decided we would make a venture into the park – a little walk we have not done for several days now as little things like local elections, coronations and Bank Holidays have intervened. We had our normal elevenses whilst admiring the flowering trees from our normal park bench but then had a pleasant surprise as we were leaving. One of our ‘park friends’ with whom we did get on particularly well particularly during our COVID days espied us from a distance and popped quickly over the grass to make contact with us. We had a very pleasant ‘catch-up’ but we all thought it would be a great idea if we could meet for a longer chat over lunch rather than just a fleeting few moments in the park. So we have agreed a date for a week today in a cafe-bar that we used to frequent in Droitwich and used to serve some very good lunch meals – at least under previous ownership. Anyway, we are going to give it a go again in a week’s time and, even if the food is a little indifferent, I am sure that we will enjoy sitting down to have an extended chat and catch up on the lots of news that we have to exchange with other.

This afternoon, for the sake of anything else, we tuned into the ‘Parliament’ channel on the TV and caught some of the Lords debate on the Illegal Migration Bill. Practically every contribution that we heard was opposed to the Bill and I think that about 80 peers have indicated that they intended to speak. I do not think that speeches in the Lords are time limited and whilst I am sure that nothing as crude as a filibister will be attempted, the contributions of those wishing to speak will take some time. The Lords will no doubt pass several amendments to the legislation which will then return to the Commons. Then the government will have to decide whether to accept any of these amendments or to reject them all out of hand. Then the bill will return to the Lords and we may well have a ‘ping pong’ where the Bill bounces backwards and forwards between the Lords and the Commons. In the last analysis, the Commons will always (and perhaps should) have its way but the whole point of a Second or revising chamber is to get the Commons to think again if the proposed legislation is particularly contentious. As the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke early on on the debate labelling the proposed legislation as ‘immoral’ it is rather strange to hear right wing Tories in the present government claiming that their version of morality has so much more force than that advocated by tthe Archbishop of Canterbury. This one will run and run, I predict.

Our next door neighbour called round this afternoon to let us know that he and his wife will be away for the next eleven days whilst they go on holiday to one of the Spanish islands. At the same time, our newest neighbour from across our communal green area should be returning from a two week cruise of the Mediterranean so we seem to be an island surrounded by holiday makers at the moment. I must admit that there is a chance that we might make a trip to see our friends in Spain in September but at the moment the thought of airports and the hassle associated with them makes the whole concept of holidaying less attractive than it was. We normally head for Coruña in Norhern Spain where our closest Spanish friends live but the flights to Coruña are provided by a small airline called Vueing which only has slots from Heathrow. If we were to fly from Birmingham, we would have to change in Madrid or Barcelona which adds to the length and the ‘hassle’ factor so we will make up our minds a bit later on. If we feel the need for a break, we can alway go and spend a few days in Yorkshire where we can see my sister and other family members. My niece sent me a quick text yesterday wishing me a Happy Birthday and that reminds me that there are other friends that I need to text and see if we can meet up for a lunchtime rendez-vous.

Today is my birthday which always puts you in a good mood when you wake up. I have rigged up one of the ‘boomboxes’ I bought some months ago in the bedroom and did not like very much the CD disk that I kept in the system. So I changed it for another of the ClassicFM CD collection and was delighted that the second piece along was the Adagio (2nd, slow movement) from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. This, I first heard at the age of 13 when my music teacher/dorm master smuggled in into the dormitory of the attic dormitory where there two or three of us were in bed suffering from the Asian flue epidemic of 1957. We were were none of us very ill, as I remember, but at its height as many as two thirds of the class was off with the flu. This particular piece also has a particular resonance for me as my son won the school’s music prize playing it when it was 13. After that, locomotives, photography and girls (in no particular order) displaced the clarinet and what happened to it remains a mystery. Being a Thursday, I went off to do my regular weekly shop and then got back to do a quick shopping unpack, breakfast preparation and getting ourselves ready for our little trip out today to Waitrose. My sister called to pass on some birthday greetings and as she reads this blog regularly she knows all of my routines. I sympathised with a recent fall she has had in the kitchen (reaching for a high shelf) and passed on what I hope was some useful advice to stop this re-occurring. Once we were in Waitrose, I made straight for the cakes section and although I intended to buy a fruit cake, I was tempted into buying a special chocolate birthday cake. Meg and I were joined by one of our Tuesday friends and we shared the chocolate cake out between the three of us, my Irish friend who had just popped into Waitrose and some other cafe regulars. My Irish friend had bought me a wonderful present of a pack of special beers and a glass with which to drink the same. So, after a pleasat morning and chat, we returned home to finish off the meat balls of which we ate a half yesterday but today complemented with baked potato and some mange-touts. After some quite ferocious rain, the clouds rolled away to quite a bright afternoon and even Miggles,our adopted cat, turned up to give birthday greetings (in exchange for some titbits).

At my request, our son has bought me a birthday present of a very well reviewed book (‘Johnson at 10 – The inside story’) and this arrived by today’s post. As I am half way through another book, I have let Meg have first ‘go’ at this book but I suspect that once I get into it, I will read it with a kind of fascinated horror. According to at least one review of the book which brought it to my attention, Johnson exhbited a pattern of oscillating between the demands of his wife, Carrie on the one hand and Dominic Cummings on the other. It seems that often a policy was announced in the morning which, when the staff were trying to put it into effect during the day, was soon to be reversed and countermanded half way through the afternoon. Incidentally, my son and daughter-in-law gave me a birthday card which is of the best I have received over the years. It shows a young boy about 7 years old (looking quite like my son at that age) with a spanner in his hand. The text reads ‘As a child, their Son had learned loads of things from watching his Dad do D.I.Y. Mainly, words beginning with F and B’

There was a most extraordinary outburst by Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament today. It was occasioned by the fact that Kemi Badenoch, The Business Secretary, had announced a significant change in Government policy (not to shred all of the retained EU legislation before the end of the year) in the columns of ‘The Daily Telegraph‘ instead of announcing it first to the House of Commons. Badenoch was summoned to the Commons on Thursday to explain the decision, having confirmed it in an article for this morning’s Daily Telegraph. An angry Hoyle told her it was ‘highly regrettable’ she had announced the move in the press not to MPs. He admonished her saying ‘We are elected to hear it first not to hear it in the Daily Telegraph. Who do you think you are speaking to?… I am not going to be spoken to by a Secretary of State who is absolutely not accepting my ruling’ Over the years, there has been several regrettable lapses of Commons protocol in which policies are pre-announced to the media and the Speaker of the day has got more and more upset about this. But I must say, I have never heard the Speaker use such angry words or give such a strict dressing down to a Government minister before. At the same time, the Brexit wing of the Tory party are furious with Kemi Badenoch because they see the (quite unrealistic) pledge of shredding all of the 4,000 pieces of retained legislation before the end of year as a betrayal of their pure Brexit principles. But the government are worried that some incredibly important environmental and employment legislation might ‘die’ leaving us in a worse situation than before.

Thank goodness we are coming to the end of the gloomy weather that has plagued us for the last day or so. Today dawned fairly bright and clear for which we were well and truly grateful. Today, after breakfast, Meg and I set forth for a little village called Finstall only some three miles distant in which Herefordshire and Worcestershire run a club coffee morning once a month. The village hall is a good location for this gathering becaue it has sufficient parking at the rear and is evidently used as a centre for community activities. It reminds me of the village hall of the small village in which as a 9 year child I was taught how to play badminton and there always seemed to be enough to keep us occupied during the long dark winter evenings. Today we had a general quiz where we were ‘competing’, if that is the right word, against similar gatherings across Worcestershire. Our table, and the group as a whole performed quite well but the last section of the quiz was to supply the missing words of popular (and once popular) pop songs at which we were hopeless. The community activity today was photographs of old Bromsgrove but as a resident for the last sixteen years (only), this was not very meaningful to us. But the organisers are friendly and welcoming and there were about two dozen of us in total which made for a pleasant morning. After that, it was a case of returning home and a lunch of ‘meatballs’. I must admit that meatballs never has good ‘vibes’ for me as I remember that Campbells used to have a meatballs in sauce in a tin which was mainly soy as I remember. But the way that the Spanish make meatbals or ‘albondegas’ is always quite a treat. Typically, they are made from minced beef and pork blended with fried onions, cumin and smokey paprika and shaped into large meatballs with egg and/or rice as a binder that are slowly cooked in a rich tomato sauce made with roasted red peppers and Rioja wine. So if I am offered ‘albondegas’ in what I call a ‘peasant’ type cafe in Spain (good homely cooking) I never turn down the opportunity.

This afternoon, the grass was evidently due for a cut as it is a week now since its last cut and the grass (and buttercups) has well and truly shot out of the ground. The minute I had changed into my gardening clothes ready to do the mowing, a shower opened up overhead. It was one of those occasions where I wondered whether to carry on in the hope (expectation) that it might be a light quick, passing shower. I did carry on mowing the grass and the shower proved heavy enough to make life a little uncomforable but not of the intensity to abandon the mow altogether. I had a particular motive in wanting to get the grass cut today because tomorrow is my birthday and we intend to see some friends in the morning – but then I wanted a more relaxing time in the afternoon. Needless to say, no sooner had I finished the mowing but the clouds rolled away and we had one of those beautiful and glorious late sunny afternoons but of course this can never be predicted. Amusingly, Miggles, our adopted tabby cat came running across the grass to greet me when I was extracting the mower from the garage but the cat sensibly retreated to sit on one of the brick staunchions (which I think they are called) which adorn our porch and meant that the cat could escape the worst of the rain. The cat observed me mowing, had a good wash and then followed me into the rear garden where he/she deigned to sit on my lap and have a stroke whilst I was having my mid-mowing break. I did relent and give the cat a few titbits as a reward for loyalty or patience, I know not which.

The breaking news last night was that Donald Trump had lost a case for sexual harassment taken against him by a New York magazine columnist. The case dates from a decade or so ago but New York has passed some legislation to allow for such cases to be heard. Donald Trump did not turn up to defend himself but his defence was hardly helped by the fact that an audio clip exists of him bragging about grabbing diverse women by the genitals. But a damning feature of this case was that he denied ever having met the woman until he was confronted by some photographic evidence. He then proceeded to argue that the woman bringing the complaint was ‘not his type’ but subsequently mis-identified a photograph of the woman as his first wife. This was a civil case and as such it did not attract a gaol sentence. But the civil damages were put at the best part of $5 million which may almost be back pocket money for Trump. In any case, I am sure that his avid supporters would raise this money in no time at all so the eventual financial pain might be very small. But there are several cases outstanding against Trump including tax fraud and incitement to the invasion of the Capital building two years ago so that it is possible that Trump may suffer a death by a thousand cuts if some or all of these outstanding cases succeed.

Today being a Tuesday, the week reverts to its normal rhythms. I must say that after the excitement of the local election results last Thursday night and all day on Friday, the Coronation on Saturday, our street party on Sunday and a rain-filled tidying up day on Bank Holiday Monday, it is rather reassuring to get back into a more normal routine again this week. The weather today is a fair mixture of sunshine and showers but even so, a lot more pleasant than the totally gloomy day of yesterday. This morning after we had picked up our copy of The Times, we made for Waitrose where we found three of our friends waiting for us – a fairly typical happening on Tuesdays. I told the assembled company a joke in the form of a riddle I had heard a few years ago but had totally forgotten until very recently. This is ‘How does an agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac spend his time?’ to which the answer is, of course, ‘They lie awake all night wondering if there is a Dog’ I admit you have to concentrate little to get the full meaning of this, but there you are. After this, Meg and I go home and I got myself turned out for my normal Pilates class which involves changing into my tracksuit bottoms and then taking down my rolled up Pilates mat and a rucksack with bits of kit inside. The weather on the way down was a little indeterminate but I left five minues earlier to make a slight detour into town to buy a couple of birthday cards. One of these was a week late (which, unfortunately, is maintaining the tradition of the last year or so) whilst the other birthday is tomorrow so I am hoping that putting a first class stamp on it and getting it into the post by 1.00pm is time enough to get it to Oxfordshire by tomorrow. May is quite a heavy month for birthdays because there is a cluster of colleagues from the University of Winchester all of whose birthdays fall in May so I always need to consult my diary in plenty of time to get these cards posted off in time. The two friends to whom I posted off cards today received appropriate cards, one with a ‘cat’ theme and the other with a ‘computing’ theme. However, I must say that many birthday cads these days are very often adorned with glasses of liquor as though on is going to spend the whole of one’s birthday imbibing from morning until night. Although I enjoy a glass as much as anyone, the birthday card writers seem to assume that it is the most important part of one’s day. After I returned from my Pilates class today, Meg and I enjoyed our traditional treat for a Tuesday which is haddock fish cakes and some of those ‘quick cook’ vegetables that only take about three minutes in a microwave. This way, upon my return from Pilates, I get a meal put on the table in just a few minutes.

Tomorrow being the second Wednesday of the month, Meg and I will probably go out to the social event organised by Herefordshire and Worcestershire Age Concern which is held in the village hall of a neighbouring village called Finstall. On our first visit last month, we made the acquaintance of some people who not only worshipped in our church but with whom we shared some common aspects of our biography, both having lived in Manchester for several years as well as having travelled in both Spain and Mexico. We also renewed our acquaintance at the party held down the road on Sunday afternoon but I forgot to ask if they were also going to attend tomorrow. Tomorrow, the theme of the morning is going to be ‘Photographs of old Bromsgrove’ that is not going to be very meaningful to Meg and myself as we have lived here for less than sixteen years but I am sure will be much more meaningful to most of the people there. Who knows what other contacts and potential friends we might make on our visit tomorrow so I think it is a case of ‘nothing venture, nothing gain’

The story of the arrest of those demonstrating against the Coronation continues to unfold. This morning on Radio 4 it was announced that the Met Police had expressed regret at the arrests and an officer had even gone round to the home of the leading light of the ‘Republican’ party to offer an apology. The Met story keeps changing however. At first it was said that the arrests were made under the ‘old’ public order legislation but then it was admitted that the arrests were made under the ‘new’ legislation brought into force a week ago, largely to counteract the efforts of protestors in the ‘Just Stop Oil’ campaign who had been using techniques such as ‘locking themselves’ onto immovable objects to make their point. Later on this afternoon, the story is changing yet again. Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Met, says the arrest of six anti-monarchy protesters was ‘unfortunate’ – but insists his officers were seeking to thwart what he describes as a ‘criminal network’ in which tins of paint were to be thrown in the course of the procession. All six were released without charge. But it is interesting how the story of the arrest, the apology and then the further elaboration keeps changing over time.

Today started wet and gloomy, exactly as the weather forecasters had predicted. Meg and I watched the Coronation Concert broadcast from the grounds of Windsor castle yesterday evening and we rather enjoyed it. One of the opening acts was the choir put together by Gareth Malone from amateur singing groups all over the country who had had only one rehearsal together before they performed live on stage. Having seen a preliminary programme about the formation and instruction of the choir in a programme on Friday evening, it was actually quite exciting how they would perform live in the Coronation Concert itself. They performed magnificently and, in my view, much better than some of the established acts such as Lionel Richie. Bryn Terfel and Andrea Bocelli sang a piece together which to my ears sounded under-rehearsed and did not really come off – so it is interesting when amateurs might be said to out-perform the professionals as it were. Meg and I got ourselves ready and then popped down to ensure that we collected our newspaper before the newsagent closed up later in the morning (as it is a Bank Holiday) We also took the opportunity to pop some ‘thank you’ notes through the doors of those who had expended a lot of effort in making yesterday such a successful and enjoyable coronation party. Being so wet and gloomy, we busied ourselves with some tidying up jobs and took the opportunity to peruse and throw out some newspapers that had been waiting for an occasion such as this.

The Metropolitan police are coming under renewed critiscism this afternoon for what appears to be heavy handed tactics when it came to dealing with those who wished to protest (peacefully) against the Coronation. According to some acconts, the police had already been told by the protestors what they were going to do, how many banners they had and what was written upon them but were were still arrested as the banners were being taken out of the van. They were then detained for up to 16 hours. Some 64 people were arrested on Saturday but only 4 people have been charged. Rather strangely, volunteers who were handing out rape alarms to keep women safe in the early hours of Saturday morning were taken into custody, even though they were part of an operation sanctioned by, and wih the cooperation of, the police. To put the best possible construction upon all of this, it is possible that the potential protesters were speaking to one unit within the police but the actual arrests were made by others so it may be a case of the relevant information not being properly shared within the Met. On the other hand, it does appear that the right to peacefully protest has been effectively denied and apparently, the arrests have taken place under legislation rushed through and only put into effect the week before. One imagines that the Chinese and the Russian police might have acted with the same degree of alacrity (but probably a lot more brutality) It will be interesting to see the attitudes of the courts in these cases. The police are saying that the arrests were necessary ‘in the context of the situation’ and evidently what has to be balanced out are the desires of the vast majority to witness a coronation for the first and perhaps only time in their lifetime, against the time honoured right to protest, lawfully and peacefully, upon such occasions.

Last year about this time, the Eurovision song context was won by Ukraine and that country would normally host the competition this year. But because of the war situation in Ukraine, the competition was awarded to the UK as our song had (surprisingly) come second last year. The City of Liverpool was awarded the competition within the UK after a bidding process and the competetion culminates next Saturday evening, But there are semifinals being held during this week and the British media are giving a lot more attention to Eurovision this year. Of course, it is is impossible not to have the most outrageous of outfits and some of them are being paraded in Liverpool this week. The UK only a year or so back received the dread ‘nul points’ i.e. scored zero and this happened once before just after the Iraq war when the UK was perceived in a very negative light. This year may well be different and perhaps the UK entry will do moderately well rather than extremely well but we shall see next Saturday.

The Government announced todate that some £240 million is being devoted to improve access to a doctor as the difficulty in getting an appointment has been mentioned so much on the doorstep in the recent local elections. The money is to be devoted to better telephone systems with some training for staff but I fail to see how this will help if theere are not enough GP’s or ‘physician associates’ around to cope with the increased flow of appointments which is likely to result. I tell myself that nothing much will change for months and, even then, I would be surprised if there was going to be much help in seeing a GP within a day or so (rather than a week or so) which as been the situation until now.

So today is ‘post Coronation day’ and the weather is said by the weather forecasters to be the finest of the weekend. We have come to expect wet Bank Holidays (which is tomorrow) and, of course, yesterday as Coronation Day was a rainy day but we are hopeful this afternoon which is the day of our communal garden party, the weather will be better. Meg and I got up and breakfasted in front of the Lorna Kuennsberg Politics show held from 9-10 on Sunday mornings. Evidently there were two big events for discussion one of which was the Coronation yesterday and one of which was the dramatically poor local election results for the Tory party but within the one hour allocated, there was not really enough time to have either enormous topic discussed adequately. About the one definite new bit of information to come from Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was a commitment never to prop up what is seen as a failing conservative administration after any General Election held within about 18 months or so from now. A similar commitment was not forthcoming with respect to the Labour Party which means that the Liberal Democrats may give tacit support to a minority Labour administration on a so called ‘Confidence and Supply’ basis. The Labour and the Liberal parties have been here before because we had what was known in the 1970’s as ‘Lib-Lab’ Pact. In this arrangement, the Liberal party did not oppose policies or legislation which were broadly consistent with their own whilst some matters were ones in which the Liberals would definitely vote with the Conservatives. The grey areas in between were to be thrashed out in an Consultative Committee. There are some commentators who have argued that in constitutional terms this worked out quite well and gave the UK a period of stable government and ‘sensible’ policies and legislation. If this has happened once before within recent political memory, there is no reason why it should not work again. Meg and I made our Sunday morning pilgrimage to Waitrose where we met with our University of Birmingham friend and for some of the time we were discussing some practical arrangments where the three of us and another friend could meet up for a lunch time or afternoon repast. After consulting with some of the Waitrose staff, we may avail ourselves of their party platter service where everything is ordered over the internet and Waitrose do the rest.

Meg and I had a light lunch of mussels in a tomato and garlic sauce because we suspected that we were were going to party all afternoon. We got a quick telephone call from our Italian friend down the road who was suffering from some sinus problems and was unsure whether she could make the party or not. So Meg and I walked slowly down the road where we discovered that our friends had already organised a long line of three long trestle type tables all decked out and ready to sit down and socialise. We started drinking our supplies (in our case, Newcastle Brown and some Prosecco) before the grub started to flow- sandwiches, samosas, quiche tartlets and similar party food. This was followed up by scones wih cream and jam,trifle, fresh strawberries and cream followed by some hot beverages. We even found time to toast the new King (and the party organisers) with some fizz at the end of the afternoon. Then we were given a lift home by our friends (Meg was feeling a little tired by this stage) but we had had about four hours of wonderful partifying and lots of chats amongst the 16+ of us present. Half way through the afternoon, our Italian friend (known to nearly all of us) turned up having felt a smidgeon less poorly so we were all pleased to see her and this occasioned even more chats and drinks.

This evening is going to be the large Coronation Concert to be held at Windsor and this is promised to be a real ‘potpouri’ of musical offerings. We know that we are going to have some ballet, Andrea Bocelli, Bryn Terfel and perhaps a surprise appearance of Winnie the Pooh/Paddington as well as lots of ‘popular beat combo’ stars (in the immortal words of Spike Milligan). This goes on most of the evening so may be ‘wallpaper type’ TV in which can doze through some bits and wake up for others.

Evidently, normal politics is suspended for the day. Nonetheless, there is some concern that the police may well have over-reacted in their stated intention to keep yesterday’s Coronation demonstration free. For example, it has been revealed that one of the leading lights of the Republican party was arrested before he could even start to reveal the ‘Not My King’ lettering on his tee-shirt and was then held away from the processions for about 16 hours. There are some who are arguing that the right of Britons to protest peacefully has just been removed (or severely abrogated) so what will the Courts make of all of this if it ever come to Court (which I doubt in some cases) There is always the possibility of suing the Police for unlawful arrest and/or detention but I am not sure what the legal precedents are in this case.

Today is Coronation Day and, true to form, it promised to rain practically all day. On the day of the last Coronation in June, 1953, it rained practically all day long and the same may have been true of the coronation in 1937. I think one has to go back to the coronation of George V for a coronation in which it is not raining. After Meg and I got up, we went quickly down to pick up our copy of the newspaper before proceedings were due to ‘kick off’ at about 10.20. Despite myself, I watched nearly all of the proceedings and those inside the Abbey were particularly interesting. As a sign of changing times, we had a gospel choir complete with energetic body movements but there was a fair mixture of music both traditional and newly commissioned. The service was schedued to last for two hours and although the proceedings were said to be scaled back, all of the traditional ingredients were there and whatever scaling back was done was seen to be apposite. For example, back in 1953, each attending peer (hundreds) had to kneel before their monarch pledging obedience and this must have taken forever and a day. The innovations brought into the service I must say I liked. For example, Bryn Terfel sang the Kyrie in Welsh, which is the first time Welsh had been sung in the Abbey. The modern compositions by Debbie Wiseman and Andrew Lloyd Webber seemed to blend almost seemlessly into the old such as Parry’s ‘I was glad’, Handel’s ‘Zadoc the Priest’, some William Boyce, Orlando Gibbons and two offerings from Byrd. One particular hymn that was sung heartily by everybody was ‘Christ is made the sure foundation’, composed by Purcell and predates the Reformation. Although I do not remember singing this hymn as a boy, it was sung at our own wedding in 1967. When I was recreating this for an archive of our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations, I found a video of this hymn known as a ‘processional Hymn’ because of its time structure and this hymn was played when Pope Benedict participated in Ecumenical Celebration at Westminster Abbey, City of Westminster, on 17 September 2010. The text (in Latin) dates from c7th-c8th century so may well be sung by many denominations. I must say that the newly crowned king seemed tired on occasions and even, occasionally, a little frail although he is 4 years younger than I am.

So we came to the procession down from the Abbey to Buckingham Place in the Coronation coach in which Queen Victoria was said to refuse to travel becaus it was so uncomfortable. I must say that when the TV cameras focussed on it it seemed to jolt in every conceivable angle and is apparently unsprung. I would imagine that a ride in any distance would induce something akin to sea sickness so Charles and Camilla were probably sensible to travel to the Abbey Service in a more modern and air conditioned coach so that they did not spend two hours in the Abbey feeling queasy after the ride (although Queen Elizabeth managed it but did say how uncomfortable it was). The by now traditional fly-past ceremony when the royals were parading on the balcony of Buckingham Palace had to be curtailed because of the dangers posed by low cloud. So we had an initial flypast by some helicopters followed, almost immediately, by the Red Arrows and the red, white and blue streamers but the much more ambitious flypast by several other aircraft which constituted the ‘meat in the sandwich’ had to be abandoned because of the weather conditions.

After the disastrous election showing for the Tories, Rishi Sunak must have been counting his lucky stars that we had a Coronation today to delay much forensic examination of the results and then we have Sunday followed by a Bank Holiday in Monday so all of this may delay, or blunt, the effects of any post mortems. The Tories thought they might be quite clever in letting it be known that up to 1,000 seats might be at risk as part of a strategy of ‘expectation mamagement’ and then if only about 700 seats were lost then they claim the results were nowhere near as bad as predicted. But this strategy backfired as the actual results (1,061 seats lost) were even worse than their ‘worst possible’ scenario. The newspaper accounts seemed to confirm what was pretty obvious as the results unfolded that there was an unofficial tactical voting going on on the ground as people seem to be voting in any way that they could to ditch the Tories. This behaviour may well work very well in local elections but will probably not work as well when it comes to a general Election. As a prominent, left-of-centre journalist, Suzie Boniface explained ‘In local elections, you vote with your heart but in general elections, you vote with your head’ She subsequently explained how she often voted ‘Green’ in a local election but would never do so in a General Election because the Green candidate was most unlikely to win the constituency. These local elections cannot be taken as a very good guide to a General Election as people do vote differently when voting in a General Election.

Yesterday was local elections day but, apart from photographing dogs who had been left outside polling stations whilst their owners were inside to vote, there was not too much to capture the attention of the press. Being somethng of an election junkie, I thought I would watch the early results until about 2.00am and then creep off to bed. In practice, it did not not quite work out that way. Suddenly at 2.30am the results started to look a lot more exciting. In particular, interesting things started to happen in Worcester City Council which is evidently the major town to the south of us. There was a persistent rumour that the Conservative leader of the City Council (which was ‘No overall control’) had lost his seat to a Green candidate and had left the count and gone home, abandoning his party colleagues and the rest of the count to lick his wounds in private. In 2022, the Conservatives were the largest single party and had 15 seats with Labour 12, Green 6 and Liberal Democrat 2. But now in 2023 the Conservatives lost 7 of their 15 seats, The Labour party gained 1, the Greens pushed on from 6 to 10 and the Liberal Democrats from 2 to 4. In some ways, this was very representative of the rest of the country as the electorate seemed to be saying ‘Anybody but the Conservatives’ and whilst they lost councillors and seats (and councils) across the country, the other political parties all increased the seats that they held. I suspect that what particularly rankled the ex-Conservative leader in Worcester was the fact that he was beaten by the Green candidate (and in Tory demonology, the Greens are regarded as to the left of the Labour Party) So intrigued by this almost local result, I did creep off to bed at about 3.45 in the morning.

Friday is the day when our domestic help arrives but she arrived arrived early and crept around very quietly so as not to wake us up. In practice, I got up at about 9.00 in the morning and then Meg and I breakfasted and decided, almost on the spur of the moment, to treat ourselves by going to Waitrose. We were glad that we did so because we bumped three of our regulars and our University of Birmingham friend also turned up so we had a jolly time but split over two tables on this occasion. Then Meg and I made for home closely followed by our friend because we had a discussion on the best way to clean patios and I was somewhat wary of a pressure washer in case it lifted the grouting and ruined the whole of it. So I promised that he could have one of my spare patio cleaning tools (wire bristles arranged in a kind of ‘V’ shape and designed to remove weeds from patios) We had a fish pie that we normally have on a Friday and then, after lunch, settled down to watch the election results trickling in through the afternoon. In the early part of the afternoon, we discovered that Bromsgrove, that has had a Tory local authority (and MP) ever since we moved here some fifteen and a half years ago, had moved from Conservative to ‘No overall control’ The Conservative number of seats dropped from 18 to 11, Labour went up 1 from 7 to 8, Independents moved from 5 to 7 and Liberal Democrats gained 5. The Conservatives had run this council for the last 24 years but with this kind of result, it is very unclear who will run the council from now on. The Conservatives only command 11 of the 31 seats and I suppose many of the Independents may ally with them, this is by no means certain. In my local ward, the Conservative councillor was elected with 240 votes but the Labour vote was 175 (not too far behind) and the Liberal Democrats at 90 – so I now live in an area with a anti-Conservative majority. One factor that may have played out locally is that masses of new housing on the edges of the town has been approved and is in the course of construction but planning permission has been forced through with massive opposition from local residents so perhaps this explains some of the anti-Conservative vote.

Tomorrow, of course, is Coronation Day and I expect that I will tune in for some of the music to be played in Westminster Abbey. There is always some traditional music such as ‘Zadoc the Priest’ which has been sung at every coronation since that of George II. But there also be some especially commissioned music and individual performances such as from the South African soprano so I shall look forward to that. The major event of the weekend is the party we have been asked to attend with friends on Sunday afternoon and that will be the highlight of our weekend. I bought some nice wine and a couple of bottles of ‘Newcastle Brown’ to take along and the weather forecast is showing that Sunday may have the best weather of the weekend. In any case, it will be wonderful to have a chat with the people attending the party – of some 15-16 we think we that we know practically all of them so a happy occasion is in prospect.