Before I came to bed last night, I read my emails and was delighted to see that Worcestershire County Council had replied in detail to the points that I raised with them concerning the circumstances of the missed direct debit payment that the County Council were trying to reclaim seven months after the event. The letter contained a full and unreserved apology and agreed with the points made in my letter of where procedures had gone awry. The very welcome news was that although I had made one payment of one sixth of the missing direct debit, under the circumstances they were going to cancel the remaining five months of repayment. The sums involved are not large but are welcome given that I am trying to keep my finances under tight control at the moment. Given the conciliatory tone of the letter, I immediately sent off a reply thanking them for their prompt action to remedy an evident mistake and, at the same time, also sent off letters of thanks to the district and the county councillors who had intervened on my behalf. This is how things are supposed to work, of course, but I wonder how often there is actually a favourable outcome. I suppose the moral of this story is always to complain but politely and in a tone that reflects sorrow rather than anger to get the redress that is needed.

We have awoken this morning to the Trump imposed tariff barriers to be applied to steel and aluminium products on a universal basis and the EU is reacting with the anticipated tit-for-tat retaliatory sanctions. Here in the UK the government have decided (wisely) not to take immediate retaliatory action as the overall trade balance of the UK and the USA is in an approximate balance and the UK is hopeful of concluding a rapid renegotiation of a trade agreement with the USA. This is probably quite sensible but it is calculated that tariffs like this will have a 2%-3% impact over about five years, assuming no further tariffs are erected, of course. The Trump approach in these matters is to raise a tariff, hope for a change in policy in the country to whom it is applied and then to remove the increased tariff if the country complies. But there is quite a hot trade war between USA and Canada at the moment, not helped by the fact that Trump keeps repeating his claim that Canada should become the 51st state of the USA (which is never going to happen, of course) The world’s attention, of course, is how Trump is going to play Putin in the ceasefire proposals for the Ukraine. Having a military advantage, the Russians are bound to play for time, and I expect that Putin will get the better of Trump and not the other way around.

The young Asian carer came around whilst I went off to do my weekly shopping at Aldi. This week, I tried to make into a ‘light’ week and thought hard about the items that I actually need for the next week instead of ‘like to have’ So I got home in plenty of time to get the shopping unpacked and to view the mid-day news. But dramatic news broke in the middle of the morning that the whole of NHS England – the administrative arm of the NHS- is to be scrapped with the sacking of 13,000 staff (which might have included my own son were it not for the fact that he is himself retiring in about three weeks time) NHS England was set up by Andrew Lansley, a Conservative minister, the idea being that there should be an ‘arms length’ body which was to manage the NHS so that politicians could not interfere. This sounds laudable but in practice the NHS is huge and takes a fair amount of management (but far less than would be the case of a privatised health system such as in the USA where the bureaucracy associated with the insurance companies) is huge. The justification for this centralisation is to ‘avoid unnecessary duplication’ and to ‘bring back democratic control’ but it does imply that politicians can now be so much more interventionist over issues close to their hearts such as waiting times. The frustration of politicians can be understood up to a point as trying to effect change in the NHS is rather like steering a massive oil tanker. It is said older oil tankers can take more than two miles to stop. The biggest tanker in the world, the Knock Nevis, weighs 564,763 tonnes, can carry 4m barrels of oil and takes three miles to stop. You could lay the Eiffel Tower down on the deck and still have room for Nelson’s Column, and it is so unwieldy that it is now laid up in Dubai. Ships like the Knock Nevis date from the 1970s and their technology is as crude as their cargo. So an order can be issued but it seems to take an eternity to put into effect Now the effect of the reforms is to remove all of the personnel from the ship and to attempt to steer and sail it with the attention of a few senior officers on the bridge (or, in other words, the Department of Health!) So, I can perceive that the costs of reorganisation could be huge (redundancy payments) and the inefficiencies tremendous (as the centre cannot know everything) so we may end up min a worse situation than before. The Integrated Care Boards’ and the Hospital Trusts have just been told to cut their costs by 50% which sounds as though the American anti-hero, Elon Musk, has suddenly taken over. One doubts whether a change of this magnitude has been sufficiently thought through but it does mean that if the NHS goes ‘belly up’ in 2-3 years time i.e. just before the next election, then it is the politicians who have to carry the can as they have no one else to blame but themselves. There is also ma wider agenda at play here which is to radically reduce the cost of the state in a whole variety of functions because, put crudely, we have run out of money and to not want to tax more or to borrow.

The very welcome news from the day before was that it now appears that the collision between the cargo vessel and the oil tanker in the midst of the North Sea might not be as calamitous as first feared. The owners of the cargo vessel are saying that their containers did not contain cyanide which given its toxicity to all forms of marine life was good to hear. Meanwhile the captain of the cargo vessel has been arrested and charged with gross negligence and homicide by neglect, presumably because of the one missing crew member. This story will run and run but the UK maritime authorities appear to have acted swiftly and professionally which is all to the good. The other big piece of breaking news is that the Ukrainians have accepted the terms of an American ceasefire and have praised the efforts of President Trump in bringing this about. No doubt they are learning how to play the diplomatic game and another invitation to the White House may be in the offing. The Americans have restored the sharing of intelligence and some. military assistance to the Ukraine and, one suspects, this is all part of a strategy to bring pressure to bear upon Russia and the ‘ball is now in their court’ Nobody quite knows how the Russians are going to react to this ceasefire proposal and certainly, as they say, ‘the boot is on the other foot’ I would expect a certain amount of prevarication and foot-dragging by the Russians and they may have to be dragged by the Americans to the negotiating table. Now this will certainly be a test of Trump’s much vaunted abilities to broker a deal. I have thought of a negotiating tactic that the Ukrainians might deploy so that they lose too much face when it appears they will have to cede some (already Russian-speaking and Russian occupied) territory. The Ukrainians should press for a plebiscite in the occupied territories and were the Russians to refuse, which appears likely, the Ukrainians could occupy the moral high ground and argue that Russians can only hold onto territory by force and against the will of the people which radically undermines the Russian claim that they are ‘really’ Russian. If, on the other hand, the Russians were forced to concede a plebiscite and were to win it (one way or another) then the Ukrainians could argue to their own people that Ukraine is a democratic society and if a section of the population wishes to ‘join’ another country, then let them do it. If the Ukrainians were to win a plebiscite. but the territories are still ceded to Russia, then the Ukrainians could use this as a lever to enhance the degree of autonomy in the occupied lands within the newly expanded Russian state. In other words, whatever the outcome of a call for a plebiscite, the Ukrainians could appear to have made much political capital out of a situation where they are probably forced to concede some territory in any case.

Yesterday morning was characterised by our domestic help calling around to work her magic whilst Meg and I thought we would have a quiet and restful day and Meg was dozing most of the morning. I devoted some time whilst having a leisurely morning to looking at some of the webspace I rent to ascertain whether I had enough, and I have a spare 32Gb so that is enough for foreseeable needs. I also did a count-up of the folders within my webspace and discovered that I had 50 folders in it, one being huge (this blog) and many being trivial such as a one-page websites. But there are also folders of holiday ‘snaps’ that are well worth a browse. Some time ago, I registered a couple of .eu domain names before we had actually left the EU. I subsequently discovered to my disgust that these had been expropriated, and I can no longer access them. The content of these websites was small and relatively trivial but at the time, and now some years, later it still rankles somewhat. The body that allocates top level domains had evidently taken it upon themselves to remove the right to an .eu address but I thought when I acquired these names that I would acquire them whilst I could.

Around lunchtime, one of the District nurses called around. She is monitoring a pressure sore which has turned into a ‘deep tissue injury’ on one of Meg’s heels and, at the same time, took a photograph of the bruise that is now developing on Meg’s other foot since she hit the pavement when she fell out of her wheelchair last Saturday. She also took Meg’s blood pressure and oxygen levels which were both reassuringly high but in a week’s time they are probably going to perform a Doppler test to assess the extent of the deep tissue injury. The nurse said she would also check up on the progress of the referral I made to the OT service the other day to see if any additional supports might be available so that we do not have a repeat of the wheelchair episode.

Whether the Russians will actually come to the negotiating table is the talking point of today. One of the foremost defence analysts in the UK. Michael Clarke, is of the view that Donald Trump is running the risk of looking like ‘an absolute fool in front of Russian President Vladimir Putin’. He says Trump has the business style of a property magnate but it is not the way Russians like to negotiate ‘It is not the way diplomacy tends to work in reality. It does on TV series, but not in reality. Putin is very, very clever and he is cunning. He is not a terribly bright man, but he is cunning.’ he states. Clarke adds that the danger for Trump is that he will push for a quick deal which ‘looks good for the first couple of weeks and then falls apart’ He says that for that to happen to Trump so early in his second term would not go down well with a man who cares so much about he is viewed by history.

We awoke yesterday morning to an assessment of the consequences of the ship collision in the North Sea. A container ship containing some deadly cyanide crashed into a stationery oil tanker containing jet fuel which immediately exploded creating a fireball which was visible from space. The consequences for the great variety of wildlife off the Yorkshire coast are incalculable and perhaps it is going to take the full light of day to assess the actual damage and its likely consequences. At least the aviation fuel is lighter than crude oil and some of it would either evaporate, be burnt off or could, in theory, be contained by booms. But the cyanide compounds could be the greater problem, and it is unclear as I write how many of these containers were split open or spilt into the sea. But, at its worst, we are facing one of the greatest ecological disasters that the country has ever experienced. Wondering how this collision could occur, come commentators have pointed out that both ships have radar and could have detected each other some 24 miles apart. On the other hand, it is possible that the container ship was on autopilot which meant that there was nobody actually on the bridge keeping lookout which seems almost impossible to comprehend. I have a memory of other disasters that occurred in the North Sea, and this was when I was employed in my first job as a clerical worker in a small company in Harrogate called Skanda Wallpaper Company which imported wallpaper principally from Germany,. In the pattern book, there was a particular design (No. 469) which was wildly popular and decorators and new house builders being desperate to order it. But then Sod’s Law took over (‘If anything can go wrong, it will’) and there was a fire. in the mill in Germany. When production was started again, supplies were laden onto a cargo ship in the North Sea (HMV Fountains Abbey as I recollect) which then itself caught fire. As a young 16 year old teenager, I was left answering the phone to irate customers all over the country who, quite frankly, just did not believe that these two events could have impacted upon their favourite wallpaper and young couples all over the country wanting to move into their first, decorated dream home being left distraught. I was only employed by this company for about four months but in those days, January 1st was a public holiday. and I started work on 1st January, 1962 but my first exposure to the commercial world was not a happy one. I was dismissed because I was ill and needed to go into hospital to have an operation and the company did not want to have expense of paying my wages (which started at £3.17s.6d a week, £3.88 in decimal currency which is less than 10p an hour). Later I was to wash dishes in a local hotel where my wages were 12.5p an hour which was an evident improvement.

It was with some trepidation that I approached the task of getting Meg in her wheelchair in a good and upright posture, but I supplemented the raised seat swabs with a back support to help to keep her back more vertical and, thus prepared, set out down the road a little gingerly. But she seemed to survive the trip down the hill OK so I popped into Waitrose for a flagon of milk and our daily newspaper before journeying onto Wetherspoons where I was delighted to see our two regular friends (the elder one having made at last) Whilst I was ordering breakfast at the bar, I bumped into ‘Seasoned World Traveller’ from my walk-in-the park days and I gave him a quick update on Meg’s progress. Then it was the consumption of an egg and bacon crumpet with a mug of hot chocolate where I realised too late and to my dismay that I was breaking my self-imposed Lenten ordinance of avoiding fast cars, loose women and chocolate. Then it was the acid test of whether I get Meg up the hill safely again. I did extra care to avoid any of the especially ‘rumbly’ bits of pavement and went to the roadway when I deemed it safe as the tarmac is so much smoother there. In fact, a delightful young woman saw me making my way slowly up the hill and, very kindly, volunteered to help me push Meg some of the way home. I do not normally decline help, but I did so on this occasion because I was going so slowly up the hill not because the task was particularly arduous but because I was going slowly to keep the journey as smooth as possible. I got Meg home with no problem and was delighted that Meg’s posture had been kept more or less intact so all of my little adaptations seemed to have worked. I treated Meg to some pea-and-mint soup and then we were joined by the young male Asian carer who we know particularly well. He and I made Meg comfortable and then I prepared my Tuesday meal of a mackerel risotto and as I made plenty of this, I had two portions left over one of which went into a container for our domestic help tomorrow and the other as a little offering to our young carer. He, in return, as he was here for a ‘sit’ session ordered some doughnuts from Greggs so Meg and I indulged in one of these. We had a couple of female carers turn up but Meg had already been made comfortable so I treated the migraine of one of the carers with some paracetamol and off they went. So Meg and and I had a very pleasant early afternoon as we chatted with our young carer who was telling us about the plans he is making to move into new accommodation in the Spring. As he is a bit of a ‘foodie’ himself, he is going to share one of his signature pasta dishes with us which he has done before and which is exceptionally good. Then we settled down to a peaceful afternoon with good weather outside and an MSNBC tirade against the iniquities of Donald Trump’s lies playing on YouTube in the background.

There is a story that is circulating which I read with a certain amount of dismay. Given the whirlwind start. that Trump has brought to his presidency, a reporter had ventured into Pennsylvania (which was a crucial swing state) to see what the public at large made of the first 50 days. What the reporter found was that people were delighted, the most common comment being was ‘that he is rattling the cage and making a real change’ Trump’s lies were readily believed such as the claim that a 165 year old women was in receipt of a pension and when the reporter indicated that this claim was false and had been debunked, the response was ‘Well, there is probably fake news on both sides’ In the meanwhile, the stock market is crashing and inflation is set to rise but the impact of the imposition of tariffs is hard to gauge because having introduced them, Trump has immediately put on pause the two most important walls against Canada and Mexico. One does get the feeling that the Trump presidency is bound to crash and burn and here are already all kinds of legal challenges to the mass firings but it is unclear as I write whether these will be obeyed or just ignored until they get to the Supreme Court.

Yesterday, I was a little puzzled because the media was observing the 5th anniversary of the COVID pandemic. I knew that the anniversary was fast approaching because next Monday on the 17th of March, this blog will be exactly 5 years old and I started it the day before the lockdown. But the date of 9th March was the day when the pandemic was officially declared and the actual first lockdown started a few days later and hence the discrepancy. There were many stories of utter sadness as relatives waved goodbye to their loved ones as they went to hospital where many of them died, The case was highlighted of one man with an oxygen saturation of 58 (it should be 95%) and he was given the option of an induced coma with a 50% chance of survival or to not have the treatment and have a 0% chance of survival. He chose the induced coma which lasted for over 40 days, and he emerged alive but minus the hearing in one ear and the sight of one eye. In some ways, it seems hard to believe that we actually survived all of that, but Meg and I walked down to the park every day to get a lot of fresh air (and to boost our immune systems) and were scrupulous in our mask wearing and social distancing. The enquiry into all of this is still proceeding and will still take years let and one wonders whether any real lessons have actually been learnt. We know already, though, that a lot of the Tory party friends made a lot of money supplying dodgy PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) a lot of which was subsequently destroyed having been supplied to the government at a premium price.

We experienced two ‘social’ events yesterday, both heart-warming in themselves. Firstly, our University of Birmingham friend came around as he often does on a Sunday morning, and we had a wonderful gentle conversation chatting over politics and other things as well as listening to some superb renditions of baroque music courtesy of YouTube. Then in the middle of the afternoon, two neighbours, who live in the recently constructed houses next to us, called around to see how I was faring. They had observed me pushing Meg out in the wheelchair and were solicitous about my welfare. I said they must call around for a coffee some afternoon. when we could have a more extended conversation rather than simply on the doorstep. As it is a couple of weeks since the would-be county council councillor had called and to whom I had intimated my concerns about Worcestershire County Council but no action had been forthcoming But my original email of complaint (which I have re-read and am still pleased by its succinctness and directness) has been forwarded to the Director of Finance so it will be interesting to see what, if anything, will emerge from this quarter. A complaint forwarded by a county councillor though carries a bit more ‘clout’ but of course it will take days to investigate, then to consider what course of action to take and then to reply. I am requesting not a ‘refund’ but a ‘mitigation’ of the 7-month delayed direct debit, but one lives in hope.

Yesterday morning, I made my main task to get in touch with the Occupational Therapy team to see if they could suggest some more specialist wheelchair straps to keep Meg and her wheelchair united. This took a couple of phone calls to get through to the right people and after a referral was made, I am awaiting a phone call to discuss with the team what needs to be done. This may take some days but in the meantime, I am hopeful that my home-made solutions will work. I cooked some chicken legs for lunch but Meg could only eat some of it before I had to abandon efforts to feed her any more. Then for the whole, of the afternoon we watched a superb production of Mozart’s opera ‘Così van Tutte’ provided by the Vienna State Opera House. The production was sumptuous in the extreme and the singing divine and what was particularly interesting was that subtitles were provided both in Italian (what was being sung at the time) and also in English – and I have never seen this done before.

The American economy seems to be in a Trump-induced freefall at the moment. A little earlier, Sky News gave a bleak analysis of the US economy, with one economic indicator suggesting it was shrinking at its fastest pace since the pandemic. Things are hardly looking up after markets opened a short while ago, with Wall Street’s main indexes falling amid fears a trade war could spark an economic slowdown. The tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 were at near five-month lows after falling 1.3% and 2.03%, respectively. The Trump team will deny, of course, that this is anything to do with them but we are told constantly that the business community needs a stable environment to operate effectively, and this is the last thing we have with tariffs imposed one day and removed a day or so later. Trump trades upon the fact that he was a ‘successful’ businessman but some of wealth was generated by chicanery and fraud and, of course, he was convicted of false accounting by a New York court.

Last night, conscious of the way that Meg had slumped out of her wheelchair, I set to work to see how I could remedy the situation. I knew that one way or another I needed to construct a backward sloping seat but eventually I think I am going to utilise three pieces of kit that might assist. The first of these is a little triangular wedge arrangement which our domestic help had given us and I had secured inside a cushion cover. In the past, I had used this as a sort of levelling up device so that I could place a plate on Meg’s knees but since her new chair and the fact that I am feeding her, it has fallen into disuse. This, for a start, is going to go underneath the swab cushion to give a degree of tilt. The second is a piece of kit which the OT’s had supplied in the past but at the time, was of limited utility. It was like a small thin cushion but covered in an elasticated material that would only move in one direction but not in the other – I think the idea behind it at the time was an anti-slip device, but this is now going to be pressed into service as well. The final piece of kit is something which I adapted last night. I looked in my study and found what I was looking for which is a ring binder which, when nor filled with filing materials, assumes a triangular shape. This I then covered with the last piece I had of that elasticated stretchy type of fabric which is quite often to be found in hardware stores, and this completed my assembly of three items. Today, we are not going to go out in the wheelchair, so I am going to experiment with these three pieces of kit in various combinations to see what works best. I have also discovered a long thin ladies belt which I think I had bought for myself as a way of making sure that keys did not slip out of a back pocket and, although it sounds a little drastic, when next we go out which will be next Tuesday, I will see if this can be utilised with the existing laptop type of seatbelt to provide a belt and braces. Although I need to speak to the wheelchair people to see of a more ‘professional’ solution is available or, indeed, feasible then I am reasonably hopeful that these short-term fixes will do the job for me. I have consulted the Amazon website and there seems to be a good range of retaining straps available but I am still on an Amazon-avoidance type of spree and will only go down this route if all else fails. Looking on eBay, though, there is a good range of straps to prevent elderly people slipping out of wheelchairs so this must be a common problem. In all of this, I am the supreme pragmatist and ‘if it works, it works’ whatever the professionals might think. I did find the elasticated knee and elbow supports very useful to secure Meg’s ankles before the wheelchair specialists fitted some more specialist straps so a home-made solution to Meg’s slumping problems is possible,. The ultimate source of the problem, of course, is Meg’s complete lack of body strength to be able to hold herself upright in the correct posture as the rest of the able-bodied population in fact do.

There was an amazing story in the Observer/Guardian yesterday morning. Britain performed worse than most other developed nations in its response to the Covid pandemic, according to an Observer analysis of international data, five years on from the first lockdown. The UK spent more money than most other countries on economic help yet still ended up with larger drops in life expectancy, more people too sick to work, huge levels of homelessness and soaring mental health problems among young people. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King’s Fund think-tank, said the UK had not bounced back from Covid in the way other developed countries had. ‘We haven’t seen the bounceback that other countries have. When I look at the one big global indicator of how healthy we are, which is our life expectancy, we’ve gone backwards. We’ve fallen back to levels of a decade ago, while other countries have kept motoring on in western Europe and leaving us behind. It’s a pretty damning indictment of what happened.’ Hetan Shah, chief executive of the British Academy, said inequality was ‘the primary story of the pandemic. You still find that people from poorer backgrounds are more likely to have been impacted,’ Shah said, adding that the rate of long Covid in the most deprived households is double that of the most wealthy. The UK spent 19.3% of gross domestic product on extra spending and forgone revenue, and gave loans worth a further 16.7%, according to the International Monetary Fund – more than almost every other developed country except Japan, Germany and Italy. Yet the return on this investment was poor. After the lockdowns ended, every other G7 nation except the US saw more adults rejoining the workforce. However, the UK, which has historically had a better than average number of people in work, saw the reverse. There has been a 0.5% increase in the number of people not working and classed as economically inactive, with about 2.7 million too sick to work. In life expectancy, one of the most fundamental measures of how a country is able to look after its people, the UK is in a worse position than most other developed countries. Women can expect to live to 82 years and 10 months, about three years less than in Spain, Australia or Italy, while men can expect to reach 79, about two years less than in the same countries, reversing more than a decade of lifespan increases. OECD figures show that, in similar countries, homelessness is static or has been falling, but it has more than doubled in England since 2010. About 45 out of every 10,000 people are either sleeping rough or in temporary accommodation.

A French politician has made an 8-minute speech to the French senate which is so powerful an analysis and a condemnation of the Trump adventure that the speech has gone viral, as they say. The news outlet HuffPost says of it ‘Stop whatever you are doing and watch this’ A French politician by the name of Claude Malhuret has unexpectedly gained a global following after an eight-minute address to his colleagues in the French Senate on Tuesday went viral. The speech offers a clear-eyed assessment of US President Donald Trump’s alarming efforts to destroy democracy both in America and abroad, aided by Elon Musk, whom he refers to as ‘a ketamine-fueled jester. Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy,’ said Malhuret, reflecting on Trump’s baffling subservience to Russian President Vladimir Putin and constant belittling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. ‘Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally.’ This is so worth watching and YouTube also has printed the (translation) of a text of it so it can be read and savoured at one’s leisure.

Yesterday, whilst playing around with a financial spreadsheet, I managed to attach a ‘Note’ to the spreadsheet explaining to myself why I am performing the calculations that I am and the assumptions that lie behind all the analysis. Of course, this is all pretty standard stuff and I am sure that regular users of spreadsheets attach notes to their work all the time but, nonetheless, I had never actually had occasion to do this in the past. So that is another useful little tweak that I have learnt how to do. Yesterday morning, the carers were scheduled for 40 minutes earlier than normal so I had a negative lie-in but at least I know I am getting two more regular and experienced carers. I had occasion to call the care agency the day before to request that of the carers who have to get Meg up in the morning, at least one of them has a degree of experience and they are not absolute ‘newbies’ I know it is the most inexact of analogies but during WWII, young fighter pilots were often trained up and then thrown into immediate combat only to die quickly and the average life expectancy of a young fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain was of the order of 4 weeks. This weekend is to be dominated by the Six nations rugby competition again and the Ireland vs France match ought to be the most entertaining. I cannot be sure how much of the action Meg can take in when we watch it together but she always has the options of a good doze during it. On the political front, there is just a hint of cracks starting to appear in the Trump coterie. In the White House tensions flared as reports emerge of Elon Musk and Marco Rubio going head-to-head in a cabinet showdown, forcing Trump to step in and draw the first real limits on Musk’s influence.

As it was such a beautiful day, it was a real pleasure to push Meg down the hill and make our way to Wetherspoons. Once there, we met up with one of our friends but we were both concerned about the non-appearance of another who, admittedly, is in her 90’s and we hoped that she had not been taken ill in the last few days. Whilst having my egg and bacon muffin, I noticed that Meg had slumped badly in her wheelchair and had progressed from a sitting to a semi-recumbent position. Worried about this, I made for home but tried to go very gently avoiding any bumps or jolts. About a quarter of the way home, though, a nightmare unfolded as Meg slumped so badly she slipped out of the chair into a semi-kneeling position on the pavement. I was evidently struggling with trying to hold Meg in one hand and reach for a mobile phone to phone the ambulance service on the other when my plight was observed by several passers-by and motorists. Eventually, a group of about four complete strangers helped me to hoist Meg back into the chair and one even offered to run me home in the car – an offer which I needed to decline as I explained that I could not get Meg into a car. So then I made my way home slowly and with difficulty, attempting to hold Meg with one hand to prevent her falling out again whilst pushing with the other. I was completely exhausted when I got home and had to wait for half an hour until the care workers called for their midday call and I explained what had happened. On Monday morning, I shall evidently have to make an urgent contact with the wheelchair providers to discuss the situation with them and I am unsure whether the solution lies in more straps and devices to hold Meg in place or whether we need to go down the road of requesting an enhanced wheelchair that would hold Meg in place. The root of the problem is that as Meg’s illness advances, she has lost all upper body strength whatsoever and cannot hold herself with her own musculuture in a seated position. The specialist chair which had been provided for Meg at home has a fairly sharp tilt backwards so, fortunately, once I get her into this chair, she is not in danger of slipping out of the chair (which could, and did happen, before the more specialist chair was provided)

Fortunately, after this episode Meg fell asleep or was in a deep doze for which I was truly grateful. After I had rested and come round somewhat, I prepared a simple lunch of quiche and some tinned tomatoes and started to settle down to both eat this and to watch the French vs. Ireland rugby match. In the meanwhile, I have plenty of time to contemplate what our future options are liable to be because if I can no longer push Meg out in a wheelchair, then the impact upon both of our lives will be considerable. In the short term, I am going to hunt around the house to see what I can press into service as a restraining strap because I am fairly certain that I will have to provide my own solution to the problem.

I could scarcely believe my ears when I got up this morning and when I asked the smart speaker what the weather was in prospect for the day, I was informed that there was a low of 8° which is amazing considering some of the low temperatures we have had to endure recently. Looking over the news for the day, I am quietly seething about the fact that Rachel Reeves is softening up the public for fairly swinging welfare cuts at just the time when a greater proportion of our national wealth must perforce go to meet the threats to us posed by Russia and the increased defence expenditures have to be paid for somehow. So the very poorest in the world (via cuts to the Aids budget) and the most disadvantaged in our own society are having to pay for wartime expenditures. There is a case to be made that our welfare system is in need of some reforms and there are numbers of the population who are of working age but not economically active in these post-Covid days. Just to illustrate this point dramatically, the well-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) is telling us the following. For decades we have funded growth in the welfare state through cuts in defence spending. In 1960 we spent twice as much on defence as on health. As recently as the mid 1980s we spent the same on each. We now spend over three times as much on health as on defence. But even allowing for all of this, the burden of increased taxation is not being spread equally. I still maintain that our finance minister ought to get together with all of the other European societies and put 2p (or 2%) on the rate of VAT across the whole of Europe. This would come at the risk of a slight kick to inflation but would raise a lot of money immediately. Also, with some skilful political representation, this could be called a temporary ‘Putin tax’ and is only to be raised as necessary to counter the Russian threat. The fact that election pledges are being broken could be assuaged by the fact that the new revenues would be Europe-wide and that those countries that could, would contribute militarily or at least provide some money to buy attack drones and similar technology. I think the public at large would understand all of this and perhaps even support it, not punishing the government electorally for a broken pledge as the threat has only really arisen since Trump was elected and has abandoned Europe to its fate. We are now in the very interesting situation where the USA has abandoned its leadership role within NATO and the new leader of NATO could be said to be Keir Starmer and the UK. Who would have thought that in these post-Brexit days? Meanwhile, it is almost a certainty that Russian invasion of the Ukraine will be, in effect, condoned as Russia hangs onto the Crimea and the other Russian speaking parts of the Ukraine that it occupies and even modern maps of Russia produced within that country are showing that this is already being regarded as the likely outcome.

In the morning, we had two rather inexperienced care workers for Meg, and it showed. One has been in the job for about two weeks and the other for about three but, although well meaning, they are not that experienced in handling Meg or using the hoist. Consequently, I think they communicated their uncertainty to Meg who finished off in a rather troubled state. It did not help the situation in that one of the mini washing buckets that we wash when giving Meg a wash finished up with half of its content on the carpet (more cleaning up required) I did phone up the agency and got hold of one of the two managers and expressed my concerns, not in the nature of a complaint as such. The manager was in the middle of organising rotas and indicated that, in future, he would try to ensure that an inexperienced worker should be put alongside a more experienced one. Later in the morning, the Eucharistic minister called from our local church, and it was good to see her after a gap of a fortnight. She had been a bit poorly herself and had lost a close family friend in his mid 70’s, but this seems all too common an experience these days. When I had done my weekly shop, I purchased some fresh sea bass and lettuce and thought, I would try again, something that we used to cook regularly each Friday. This was to grill the fish after it had been treated with some oil and lemon juice, and it only takes about three minutes on one side and two minutes on the other. I decided to cook the meal in two tranches as the fish needs to be eaten immediately after cooking and I prepared a portion for Meg. Unfortunately, this was one of those days when either through sleepiness or some other cause, she would not open her mouth to eat the food so I resurrected some of the bits of fish so that I can heat them up and try again later. Mine was delicious, though, and I enjoyed it very much. Yesterday afternoon, it turned out fine but a little cold but Meg (if she is awake and ‘compus mentis’) and I will watch the Question Time programme from last night.

Just when you might think that Donald Trump could not get any madder, he has announced publicly today that Taiwan (to which China has laid claim) would not be defended by the Americans. This must be an open invitation to the Chinese to walk into Taiwan whenever they feel so inclined and shows that the present Trump administration will dump treaties, accords and understandings if it does not fit into the mantra of ‘Make America Great Again’) But already Donald Trump is having to put into reverse some of his policies of imposing tariffs on Mexico and Canada after a stock market crash. The imposition of these two tariffs has been suspended for a month and, I will suspect, continue to be suspended indefinitely. Trump has the reputation amongst some of the American electorate of being a successful businessman but most economists would regard his policy of imposing tariffs on all and sundry as being the height of economic illiteracy.

Yesterday morning, as is my wont, I clicked onto Sky News to read the dominant stories of the day. There I learnt that that Sky News had won best News Channel at Royal Television Society awards – as Sophy Ridge was named Presenter of the Year. RTS judges praised the ‘excellent journalism, high production values, and clear analysis’, adding that Sky News was ‘hard to beat’ in the news channel category. I must say that I was not surprised by this award which, I gather, is about the 8th year in a row. Sophie Ridge, in particular, has a very unique style who can make you feel that she is talking to you personally about an issue and I do not find this characteristic in any news presenter. The BBC consistently ‘pulls its punches’ having been savaged so often by past governments and always seems to be a little behind the curve compared with Sky News, to which I now turn as my news channel of choice. On the subject of accurate journalism, Sky News did a fact check on the speech that Trump recently made to the joint houses of the American Congress and did discover a litany of errors. But when these are pointed out, the riposte is always that they are ‘fake news’ (which is ironic in the circumstances) or waved away as political propaganda. I suspect that these fact checking articles are hardly reported in any case in the American media and, if they are reported, are immediately rebutted and are not believed. I continue to wonder why these evident mistruths are believed and discovered the following. ‘Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth’, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Among psychologists something like this known as the ‘illusion of truth’ effect. Here’s how a typical experiment on the effect works: participants rate how true trivia items are, things like ‘A prune is a dried plum’. Sometimes these items are true (like that one), but sometimes participants see a parallel version which isn’t true (something like ‘A date is a dried plum’). After a break – of minutes or even weeks – the participants do the procedure again, but this time some of the items they rate are new, and some they saw before in the first phase. The key finding is that people tend to rate items they’ve seen before as more likely to be true, regardless of whether they are true or not, and seemingly for the sole reason that they are more familiar. This is interesting if not earth shattering and shows the effect of the media taking an observation and repeating it ‘x’ number of times. Given the predominantly right-wing nature of the media in the USA, then such lies become the new truth and are believed -and thus get cemented in as a political reality. I suppose this is all very depressing really and one can only support the genuinely ‘free’ press to act as some kind of counterweight. Having been brought up to regard the BBC as semi-sacred, I remember vividly the impression that I first gained when I saw Fox News in the USA and could scarcely believe bow so partisan a channel could have the prominence in American life that it has.

Yesterday morning on my ‘shopping’ day, there was another short term crisis in the care agency and I needed to act as the second helper to the young college student who was the sole carer available to get Meg up. I did not mind helping him and we get on very well together but it is not the best start to the day for either of us. This is happening on a regular basis (ie about once a day when I am called upon to help) and although I am always willing, it puts me in a dilemma. If I were to refuse, then two care workers might be available eventually but this might well adversely affect the rest of the day and all of my plans might fall over so I will have a think about this. Later in the day, the care worker who had visited this morning came do to do the ‘sit’ whilst I went shopping and stayed on for the lunchtime call (when there should, in theory, be a second care worker in attendance.) I have now discovered that that there will only be one care worker for Meg’s tea-time call which means that there will have been three occasions in the day when what should have been a ‘double’ call is staff by a single care-worker (which could be illegal if hoisting is involved that requires two workers to be operating the machinery). But at least we are experiencing some spring-like weather which helps us all feel better in the long run.

This afternoon, Meg and I watched one of the Lucy Worsley programmes on Greatest Fibs in British History. Lucy Worsley likes to add a counter-narrative to the generally accepted, or received, view of British history and today she was focusing on the Reformation. I must say that the way in which the monasteries were dissolved and much of their ‘social services’ role stripped away whilst economic power was tilted towards the already rich and powerful rather reminded me of what is happening in Donalds’ Trump’s America. I am also struck by the parallels to be drawn between Henry’s breach with Rome (and things continental) found more than a ready echo in our Brexit adventure. Meanwhile, I learn from Sky News that the New Zealand foreign minister has been dismissed for giving a speech in London to Chatham House (which specialises in international affairs) The minister had suggested that Trump did not have a very good grasp of history, particularly as far as Churchill was concerned. He was promptly fired for his candour which is a terrible state of affairs when statesmen and diplomats across the world are frightened to say what they think of Trump in case severe sanctions are the inevitable consequence. European leaders are scrambling around to try to find mechanisms of raising lots of money to boost defence budgets in view of the fact that Trump’s USA has de fact withdrawn support from Nato allies.

Yesterday Trump told the US Congress that he had ‘just got started’ and that the USA intended to get Greenland ‘one way or another’ which is as extraordinary a land grab as one is ever likely to hear. But the Congress was informed that Ukraine was ready to sign the minerals deal, at any time. This minerals deal would give the US a share of the country’s wealth from its natural resources – which Trump has said would compensate for Washington’s support since Russia’s invasion began. The deal appeared to be on the brink of collapse last week after Trump berated Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House. But he now says the Ukrainian president has written a letter to him, and revealed they are ready for a deal. A Ukrainian MP appeared on the airwaves yesterday evening asking the question that if America really needed some compensation for all of its expenditures on munitions, why did they not claim this from Russia itself. Here in the UK, there is a movement to use some of the proceeds from Russian assets which have been frozen since the conflict began. There are many legal issues that arise in this context, both issues of public international law, European Union law, private international law and the domestic laws of various countries involved arise, and there are no easy solutions and answers. France, for example, is very reluctant to go down the road of the seizure of assets as the French doubt very much the legalities of such a move, as well as the precedents that are created and feels that several international treaties would have to be broken. But my understanding is that other countries can commandeer the proceeds of such assets, for example the interest that they generate, rather than the assets themselves. I have had a phrase running through my head since the start of the Trump regime and it is ‘A Government of Laws and Not of Men’. The phrase was first used by John Adams, attorney, and the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 and has been a guiding principle of the US constitution until the present day. But the way in which laws are being swept aside in current day America do call in mind why in British history we have had both Magna Carta in 1215 not to mention the English Civil War to sweep aside the notion of the divine right of kings in order that one individual, typically a monarch, exercises overwhelming power. The White House has stirred controversy by releasing an image of U.S. President Donald Trump wearing a crown, accompanied by the famous slogan ‘Long Live the King.’ This move has sparked widespread reactions. The White House shared a photo of Trump in formal attire on the cover of Time magazine, wearing a royal crown. The image also featured the slogan ‘Long Live the King,’ which Trump had previously shared on his social media platform, Truth Social. The image and its accompanying slogan quickly became a hot topic in the media. Some saw it as a sign of self-glorification and an unconventional approach by Trump during his second term in office, while critics interpreted it as an attempt to display authoritarian tendencies and distance himself from the democratic values of the United States. The political magazine Politico reacted by publishing a commentary, accusing Trump of a ‘serious attempt to change the governing system in America to align with what he envisions.’ According to the article, Trump is increasingly showing his fascination with monarchy.

Yesterday we knew that the hairdresser was due to call in the middle of the day, so we had to ensure that Meg’s hair was washed in advance of her visit. I had another couple of fairly inexperienced care workers again this morning and they had never used the special hair washing bowl that I purchased off the internet months ago. But between the three of us, we got Meg’s hair washed and then Meg put into her special chair in the Music Lounge. Our domestic help calls around and between us, we got Meg in her chair pushed into the hallway where the sun was streaming through the window so that Meg could appreciate some of the Springtime sun. I was pleased to be able to locate quickly the travelling kettle that Meg and I used to use together with some ‘travel cups’ (built of a durable plastic but used for so many decades that they have lost all hint of any plastic taste) and these our domestic help is going to have on a permanent loan because I can always reclaim when I next need to use them, which will be a long time in the future. Our domestic help is going on a birthday treat holiday trip to Tuscany but the family hotel they have booked, unlike their British counterparts, will not come equipped with a kettle so a travelling kettle is actually ‘de rigeur’ When the same two carers came before lunchtime to make Meg comfortable, Meg fortunately did not require much attention so I spent some time regaling the two young carers with tales of modern life, marriage and relationships. How we got onto this unlikely subject was that I said I was going cook dinner for Meg and I but had learnt over the last few months not to divide our meal equally between the two of us but have portions that more reflected our varying body weights. Lunch was going to a simple affair of slices of cooked ham warmed up in an onion gravy and accompanied by a baked potato and some green beans. The small amount of meat left over was cut into small cubes and will form the basis of a pasta or curry type meal tomorrow. Actually, as I had prepared all of the food, I waited for the hairdresser to arrive at 1.00pm after which lunch could be more easily rustled up. The hairdresser and I collaborated well in getting Meg wheeled in her chair from the hall into the kitchen (where we can more easily vacuum up hair once it has been cut.) Then we devised a plan to make things even easier for ourselves the next time around.

The nation is preparing itself not so much for a Spring financial statement but rather a ‘grim’ statement. Apart from the normal ritual obeisance about cutting excessive red tape and bureaucracy (which sounds like a typical Tory meme), there are leaks that the welfare budget is due to take a massive hit. On top of the list are those whose who, in our post-Covid age, are in receipt of benefits and not in work . The number of people economically inactive because of long-term sickness has risen to over 2.5 million people, an increase of over 400,000 since the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Over 1.35 million (53%) of those inactive because of long-term sickness reported that they had depression, bad nerves or anxiety in Quarter 1 2023, with the majority (over 1 million) reporting it as a secondary health condition rather than their main one.

Yesterday we awoke to the news that as he had recently threatened, Donald Trump had put an immediate halt to all arm shipments to Ukraine. This is really handing victory to the Russians on a plate, and it looks as though Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader, has no alternative but to crawl back to the White House, make an abject apology to Trump (who has a personal vendetta against the Ukrainian leader in any case) and accept whatever deal the Americans seem fit to enforce. In the meanwhile, Keir Starmer received almost universal praise from all quarters of the House of Commons for the leadership he has displayed over the last few days and is one of those occasions, which only tends to happen when the UK is on a war footing and the House of Commons wishes to display a unified approach to any potential foes. Meanwhile, there are reports that Trump has ordered the suspension of all ‘spy’ activities directed against Russia which means that Russian agents will have a much more free hand in the threats that they can make against the West in general and the UK in particular. This is particularly unwelcome news for the UK and has been labelled as ‘madness’ by a military source in the UK. The fascination of Trump and the Republican party with the Russian regime is very difficult for us to comprehend and many have made the observation that Ronald Reagan, a well known adversary of the then Soviet Union, will be turning in his grave.

In the morning, I spent a certain amount of time spreadsheeting the future of my mortgage repayments. We have a small mortgage with only just over three years to run and the Barclays app that I have on my phone is very good giving me my exact balance, the updated interest rate and the time left to run. In the last few years of a mortgage, as the amount owed diminishes it is particularly satisfying to see that the ‘interest’ component of the repayment reducing and the corresponding capital repayment part correspondingly increasing and, although it is not necessary for me to spreadsheet this, it is very satisfying to check the progress month by month.

Being quite a clear day, Meg and I made our way down the hill and had our usual repast with one of our friends in Wetherspoons – both of us were slightly concerned about the other friend who we know occasionally struggles to get to us but she is, after all, in her mid 90’s. Yesterday morning was not a particularly happy occasion as I had two relatively inexperienced carers on duty and were not at all sure how they were to handle Meg. Consequently, they asked that I be present so that they did the right thing and required a certain amount of supervision and instruction. Later on in the morning, we were due to have a visit from one of the specialist nurses who specialise in Meg’s condition and the appointment with us had been organised about a month ago. I have always had excellent service from this band of nurses, employed by a charity who have provided both practical and emotional support in the past. But today, perhaps because I had been anticipating this visit a little too much, I was distinctly underwhelmed. The nurse stayed with us for an hour an listened to the six things that I had detailed in my mind to discuss with her, only to be told at the end of the hour long visit that I was doing the right things, was coping very well and should contact them if there was anything further that could be done.

Yesterday afternoon, two very carefully crafted speeches were delivered and both intended for the ears of Donald Trump. The first of these was a letter written by Zelenskyy the Ukrainian leader calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities if Russia would do the same. The second letter was written by Justin Trudeau, the premier of Canada immediately imposing tit-for-tat sanctions against American products in retaliation for the 25% tariffs imposed by Trump this morning. The Canadians are appealing directly to American workers and consumers saying that this trade war is going to harm everybody, and Canadians would lift their tariffs as soon as the Americans lifted theirs. I would imagine that Trump and his coterie would find it easy to reject both letters out of hand, for Trump can never be shown to back down. In any case, sensitive matters like this are best handled through ‘back channels’ and I doubt that a public negotiation of differences is at all likely to succeed.