We knew from the weather forecast that we could expect a fall of snow overnight. Sure enough we did have a few centimetres but it was not quite bad enough to deter me from doing the weekly shopping. Admittedly, I did not feel inclined to get at the supermarket door on the dot of 8.00am so I delayed everything by about half an hour. The main roads were fine but the traffic was horrendous with lots of delays on a journey of a couple of miles. Whizzing around the supermarket when I know where everything is was straightforward and then it came to the journey home. For whatever reason, the journey back seemed choked up with traffic although the other lane of the dual carriage way seemed almost deserted. But this was one of those occasions when I was really pleased to get home with a carload of provisions for the forthcoming week. Before I attempted to unpack, I immediately got busy preparing a bowl of porridge after which I unpacked all of the shopping. When I picked up the nest of tables from the Age Concern furniture shop yesterday afternoon, I did a very quick perusal of their CD section and picked the six classical CDs that they had displayed. This is primarily because I really wanted the empty cases rather than their contents but eventually I finished up with six CDs for the princely sum of £1.25. One of these was a recording of the most well-known of the Beethoven piano sonatas and we really enjoyed playing this and savouring it whilst we were doing the unpacking. Then we got Meg ready to face the world and we got busy with our little project for the rest of the morning. By this stage of the morning, the snow flurries had finished for the day and there was some pale winter sun in evidence. I sat Meg down in our Music Room and put on a CD disk which we both enjoy tremendously entitled: ‘Ave Verum’ This is a CD of sacred choral favourites and was recorded at St. John’s College, Cambridge. It contains some of our especial favourites with pieces by Fauré and Brahms so whilst I had Meg (and myself) at peace with the world, I set to work putting the finishing touches to my restoration of the suite of nested tables. This consisted of a judicious polishing of the yew woodwork and a final cleaning of the glass inserts with some wipes especially formulated for the cleaning of glassware. Once this was all done, I had a bit of a brainwave and positioned the tables in the corner of the room recently occupied by my last renovation but one, which was the mahogany table whose bad ‘white ring’ stain I had all but eliminated. The effect was incredibly pleasing because now all of the furniture in lighter colours (maple, yew, perhaps walnut I would guess) are now on the same side of the room and the tonalities are nicely consistent with each other. Meanwhile, the mahogany table now looks quite handsome on the other side of the room where it sits besides one of the two comfortable armchairs. I raided the bottom drawers of a large unit in our dining room to see what bits of linen and ‘table dressing’ we could liberate and whilst this was largely Christmassy type things, we did remind ourselves where we kept a supply of scented candles and I liberated one small table decoration that we can immediately bring into use.

As is often the case when the government tries to avoid the fallout from making an unpleasant announcement, the Transport minister has announced a sigificant delay to a section of the HS2 line by making a written statement. The section from Birmingham to Crewe and then onwards to Manchester is to be delayed for two years in what appears to be a desperate attempt by the Treasury to save money. Long term critics of the HS2 project will be emboldened by this announcement and will still attempt to get the whole project dropped. In the meanwhile, it looks as though the concept of ‘levelling up’ will have received a severe knock by this announcement. But we know that similar projects e.g. in Spain, tend to benefit the capital city rather than the more distant cities served by the line. But in the London area, we have had both CrossRail and also the Elizabeth Line. Although these two projects were subject to significant cost overruns, the prospect of cancellation or deliberate delays was never on the cards. Meanwhile, in the murky world of Westminster politics, it has emerged recently that Boris Johnson is understood to have privately warned deputy prime minister Dominic Raab about his conduct. This long running investigation into allegations of bullying may well report fairly soon and Raab has suggested that he will resign if the complaints against him are said to be substantially correct. At the risk of a bit of ‘pop’ psychology, I wonder whether Ministers who feel intellectually inadequate are liable to resort to bullying behaviour in a desperate attempt to appear to be in charge of events. Senior civil servants tend to be highly educated and long standing in their positions and it is no wonder that ministers who may, in the famous words of Sir Robin Day, be ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ privately feel their inadequacy.

You never quite know what a day is going to bring. This morning it looked as though there were flurries of snow and that these might intensify. What a good day to have a good bowl of porridge with which to start the day, I thought to myself, and looked in the cupboard for my supplies of oats. To my dismay we were quite out of them so I decided that I would leave Meg in bed whilst I threw some clothes on and hurried down in the car both to collect the newspaper and also to avail myself of a goodly supply of oats. Waitrose had a special offer on oats which is just as well because I do not want to be without them when the weather is cold. By the time we had had some breakfast and got ourselves ready, we had a look outside and although we intended to pop down into town to pick up a purchase, we decided to abandon that particular activity at least for the morning. By the time we had some delayed elevenses in the comfort of our own home, it was not too far off 12.00 and Questions to the Prime Minister which was the usual knockabout stuff. The impression is quite strong abroad that Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman (Home Secretary) are actually relishing a fight over the Illegal Migration Bill. The Tories are arguing they are in touch with popular public opinion, not to mention thir own right wing, and whilst they privately may think that none of their provisions will actually work (and hence the absence of detail),nonetheless thay are more than happy to electioneer on a populist stance. I often think that when the Tories are up against it, they always fall back on the outright xenophobic dog whistles to act as a vote winner for them. Hence there were jibes against ‘Lefty lawyers’ and Suella Braverman even went as far as to argue that the opposition was assisted not only by lefty lawyers but the civil service as well. Naturally, this has incensed some of the civil service unions and when challenged, there was a certain amount of backing off. The Labour party for its part is arguing about the sheer unworkability of the new proposals and the track record that shows that ‘illegal’ migration has soared whilst more and more restrictive legislation is proposed. A loophole has already been spotted in the published Bill because although migrants should be returned to their country of origin or Rwanda, the provision of ‘habeas corpus’ still applies. This is a tremendously old and well established legal principal as Habeas Corpus – which means ‘you may have the body’ – is the right not to be unlawfully detained. This principle is regarded as so important that the High Court will hear an application of ‘habeas corpus’ immediately and the idea that the state can just detain people without charge is regarded as abhorrent, and rightly so. So this particular argument will run and run as the Tories will milk it for all it is worth whilst practically everybody else protests againsts its immorality, illegality and impractability.

In the late morning, I read my emails and was particularly interested in news from one of my University of Winchester friends whose wife was having an operation last Monday. I was relieved to be sent a photo of his wife smiling and waving once she had come round from the operation. On the spur of the moment, I decided to give him a phone call because it looked as though the hospital were quite keen to discharge his wife as soon as they could after the operation and would have done so except for a phyiotherapist who considered it was too early to consider a discharge. I communicated with my friend some of the experiences that I had had after a spell in hospital nearly five years ago by now. In particular, I stressed the importance of communicating with his doctor as all of the support services that he would need to assist in his wife’s recuperation are actually under the control of the doctor. But primary care services are under strain in all parts of the country and the patient, and the carers for whom the services are intended, have to be active in making sure that the intended services and care packages are actually delivered.

As the weather improved somewhat after lunch, Meg and I made a lightning visit into Bromsgrove town in order to pick up my purchase of a suite of three nesting tables, purchased recently at the Age Concern furniture shop on the High Street. These proved to be a more difficult to transport to the car than I anticipated as they are glass-topped tables which, of course, adds to the weight. I did the first stage of the restoration process including a little touching up of worn elements with a cotton wool bud soaked in scratch cover stain. I think I have effected quite an improvement as the furniture itself is a pleasant shade manufactured in yew. However, it will need a good examination in tomorrow’s daylight to ascertain whether I need to undertake a few finishing touches and, at the end of the day, I can live with a few blemishes so long as the furniture seems restored.

Today is always a day to which we look forward because it is the day when we tend to meet up with old friends in the Waitrose coffee bar. We were delighted to meet up with two of our pre-pandemic friends and, as usual, have a fair amount to chatter about. We always take the opportunity to buy some bits and pieces whilst in Waitrose and to that extent, we treat it rather like a corner shop instead of using it for our main weekly shop. After our weekly get-together, it was time for us to get home and I needed to get myself turned around for my Pilates session later on in the day. It was quite a pleasant walk down into town and I found the time to dive into a little charity shop and avail myself of a little insulated flask which I found on the shelves. The idea here is that in these cold days that when Meg and I venture out into the park we do not sit down for a prolonged rest as we have become accustomed over the months. Rather, we might have a smidgeon of tea/coffee in our little flask and then have a quick snifter of this coupled with a banana or similar whilst we have the briefest of rests but carry on walking. This way we hope we can get the fresh air and exercise but generally keep walking to keep ourselves from getting frozen.

I went down to Pilates as usual and the numbers were depleted by one today so there were only three of us. However, I do remember to turn my phone off these days which is only courtesy to my teacher and fellow class members. As I was walking home, I was surprised to see that our Italian friend had her front door open and was waiting for me to walk past. I was even more amazed to see that Meg was with her – she had apparently taken it on her own iniative to walk out of the house (with her outdoor shoes on but without a coat) and half a mile down the road where she recognised our friend’s house and presented herself at the back door. Apparently all kinds of frantic telephone calls had been made between our Italian friend and our son and my phone should have been red-hot with messages as well but I had failed to turn it on again afer my Pilates class. We stayed with our friend and her companion for about three quarters of an hour, accepting a very welcome cup of tea and biscuits before I walked Meg back to the house. When I know how unsteady Meg is on her feet these days and so prone to stumbles and trips, all I could do was to offer a silent prayer that she had not come to any harm in her venture down the road. Naturally, I gave profusive thanks to our friends and am now exercising my mind how I can keep Meg a little more safe and secure in the future. As soon as we got home, we started to think about a delayed lunch of fishcakes but suddenly realised by looking at our planning board upon which we record all our imminent engagements that our hairdresser was due round at 4.00 and it was already past that time. We realised that she is often a bit delayed and wondered if she had tried to call around when the house was empty. At 5.00pm, our hairdresser turned up to our very evident relief. One or other os us had made a mistake with the appointment which was at 5.00pm and not 4.00pm. We were evidently very pleased that we had not missed each other so we had both of our heads shorn before we cooked a somewhat delayed evening meal which was the meal that we intended to have at lunchtime.

With the events of the day, we have evidently not been following the TV news but it is the day when the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are proudly announcing the latest measures to deter the migration in small boats from across the Englsih Channel. The new policy is to declare everybody who arrives by boat an illegal immigrant and then to deport them as swiftly as possible (and we are talking here of a week or so and not months) back to their country from whence they came or else to a ‘friendly’ third country such as Rwanda. Once here, any person so deported would be automatically denied any further attempt at immigration whether it be ‘legal’ or not. The legislation is being dated from today to ensure that a huge backlog does not build up, as has happened in the past, whilst the new legislation is being put in place. The government, when publishing the bill, admits that international law may well be tested to the limit and the Human Rights Act will in all probability be violated. The response from the opposition parties and a variety of bodies concerned with immigration is that the new proposals have not been thought through and are unworkable. Where is the accommodation to be found for those who do arrive? And the migrants cannot lawfully be detained indefinitely where there is simply no prospect of removing them. So after the specified 28 days is it suggested that they may well have to be released and then left destitute on the streets?

Today was the first day in what may be a particularly cold snap and the weather forecasts show the cold air descending from the north and the east. A cold weather alert has been issued for all of England as much of the country braces for snow and icy conditions. The Met Office has already issued a yellow warning for snow and ice which is set to come into force tonight for Midlands, much of Wales and the Southeast, including London. Being a Monday, we never expect to bump into any of our park friends nor did we fancy exposing ourselves to some icy blasts. Nonetheless, we decided to make the best of a bad job and, having picked up our newspaper, we did journey to the park. There we decided to walk towards our normal bench but we had not provided any coffee to take with us. So we sat on the bench just long enough for Meg to eat her customary banana whilst I had a small orange. Then we retraced our steps back to the car and our little strategy has worked, in that we had taken some fresh air and exercise but not tarried too long to get chilled by a long sit down. Then we got home, had a packet soup to warm ourselves up and then I proceeded to make lunch.

Yesterday, the news came through that the United Nations has finally, after some fifteen years, decided on a new law of the sea which will protect some 30% of the earth’s oceans from predation by fishing, mining, or other polluting activities. I think I heard it correctly that the migration routes of whales are similarly protected. This is extraordinarily good news for the planet and the UN delegations seemed filled with justifiable emotion at their success. When this new UN resolution was discussed in the media, I saw a contribution from Dr Hannah Fry who is a British mathematician, author and radio/TV presenter and well known to most TV viewers by now. She used a phrase which struck me as being amazingly prescient when she mused that ‘Life is lived forwards but understood backwards’ I was intrigued by this expression and wondered whether she was the author of it or whether she was quoting another authority. The exact quote is this: ‘Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.’ and the author is the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. I must admit that I prefer the juxtaposition of the two sentiments that Hannah Fry gave voice to yesterday. In a similar vein, I remember once being told that ‘you always try and take the correct decision at the time’ which, again, is a bit of a truism. We none of us attempt to take incorrect decisions at important junctures in our lives but some decisions (e.g. shall I move house this year and to where?)may turn out to be extremly fortuitious and on the face of it a ‘good’ decision whereas it is possible that you make a leap out of the (proverbial) frying pan and into the fire. So sometimes our decisions turn out to have been very good ones, others may turn out not as would have liked but none of us ever tries and wants to make an incorrect decision.

This afternoon, we spent a certain amount of time listening to music on Radio 3 and ClassicFM whilst doing some routine tasks, such as making sure our accounts are up to date and going through some saved copies of newspapers to make sure that interesting items are cut out and filed away. These are often health-related issues and one that I came across was the recent research on how to keep your concentration levels and focus high throughout the day. Not surprisingly, it was a judicious combination of diet and exercise which constitute the recommendations here.

There seems to be a bit of a bitter row going on within the ranks of the Tory party this afternoon (but I suppose this is hardly news any more). The scale of the rancour and emotion over Boris Johnson and the decision by top official Sue Gray to work for Labour was on display today in a WhatsApp exchange obtained by Sky News. In a series of messages on a group chat this morning, allies of Johnson clashed with other Tories who warned against criticising the decision by Sir Keir Starmer to hire the author of the partygate report. The leaked WhatsApps show the depth of division between allies of Johnson and the rest. In case one might have thought that British politics could not get more disreputable, a story is emanating that in his resignation Honours list (the right of every ex-PM) Boris Johnson is nominating his own father for a peerage. He has already done the same for his own brother who was briefly in the cabinet but who then resigned. Apparently Johnson has submitted a huge list with about 200 names upon it and this is still bein ‘considered’ within the Cabinet Office. Rishi Sunak may have a word in it as well – but this is certainly on the ‘murkier’ side of our political life as pure nepotism would appear to be the order of the day.

Today the weather is turning noticeably colder and we need to get ourselves braced for a cold blast which may be the last that we have to endure this winter. The weather forecast is indicating a snowy belt that is going to afflict some northerly and easterly parts of the country but how quickly it is going to spread is an open question. Meg and I got upselves up and prepared to watch the Lorna Kuennsberg program which is part of our Sunday morning routine. Boris Johnson was being defended to the hilt by one of his acolytes but some other influential conservatives were not convinced by the linkage of the Sue Grey appointment as Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff and whether this might cast doubt upon the integrity of her report into ‘partygate’. I do not normally comment upon my television viewing but last night after we had returned from church and had a little supper, Meg and I channel-flipped to see what remained for the rest of the evening. We stumbled across the PBS (American) network that was running a big feature on ‘Hiroshima – the Real Story’. Although we got to bed later than intended, this documentary was riveting to watch. I learned that the Americans knew that Hiroshima was not a military but a civilian target (nowadays a war crime in itself), that the Americans moved heavan and earth to make sure that the suffering endured by the Japanese people did not see the light of day and even set up a special research facility to study the effects of the radiation (but not to attempt any treatment regimes). This is just a handful of the issues explored in the programme but I felt much better informed after the programme than before it.

In the late morning, we popped down to see our Irih frinds who live down the road and who had invited us round for coffee at midday. We were also delighted to be joined by a near neighbour who is French and very jolly and we repeated the good time that we had had at Christmas time. As a group we were all glad to be getting the winter behind us and to be rejoicing in the extra daylight that presages the start of spring. We all know that we have a bit of winter yet to experience but the end is in sight. We discussed some local affairs including a house along the road that had just gone on sale recently. This stimulated a disscussion between us that in decades gone by, when we were so much younger, then there generations of children that we were collectively raising and who formed a type of natural community. But now that the children have fled the nest years or even decades ago, such a sense of community is being lost and we face the prospect of all of us growing older gracefully (or disgracefully) together. We particularly remembered the good ten years that we had in Hampshire where there several children aged about 4-10 years old and became almost the collective responsibility of us all. Meg and I evidently no children of that age when we lived there but we were regarded as quasi-grandparents by the younger generation and baby-sitting was no real chore for us. But, of course, those days have gone as sixteen years have passed and the children of yore have grown up, gone to university and are not living in the locality any more.

In the various politics programmes that we have seen today, two little ‘facts’ stand out in my mind. The first of these was a graph shown I think on the Sky News programme which showed that whilst the Conservative party earnestly desire the ending of the immigration of asylum seekers and others in the small (and dangerous) boats that cross the channel. The graph that was particualy striking was since the Conservatives had been in power, the number of deportations had shrunk from 10,000 to about 2,000 whilst more and more legislation hs been passed in an attempt to ‘solve’ the problem. Next Rishi Sunak is going to annoounce even more legislation to ‘end’ the Cross-Channel immigration in small boats but declaring everybody illegal and instantly deporting them (even though this is contrary to international law) So judging by the evidence of the past few years, passing more and more legislation is not going, by itself, to solve the problem. The second statistics concerns the release of 10,000 WhatsApp messages which emanated from Matt Hancock and which has found its way via a biographer/journalist into the eager arms of the Daily Telegraph. The Andrew Neil show reported that the total number of words in the messages was equivalent to 2.5 times the entire collected works of Shakespeare. The Daily Telegraph is a long standing opponent of the policy of ‘lockdown’ to combat the COVID pandemic and so is milking this hoarde of emails and releasing one damaging story after another for as long as the story will run. I must say that using social media such as WhatsApp for policy discussions and the like does not strike me as the most appropriate vehicle, even in this modern age, by which policy discussions should be conducted.

Today we had to think what we were going to do as a late morning activity because now that the weather has turned a little more wintry again, neither of us particularly fancied the icy blasts afforded to us in the local park. I spent a certain amount of time messing about with my audio to get it absolutely the way I want and then Meg and I had a delayed breakfast. We then jointly decided that it would be a good idea to visit Droitwich again but the bottom end of town instead of the top end so that we could access some charity shops and do a quick whizz around the branch of Waitrose. I needed to fill up with petrol which I did on the way to Droitwich and then we parked outside Waitrose and hit the charity shops. I bought a new shirt in one and a couple of oven-proof vegetable dishes in one of the others before we set for home and had delayed elevenses as soon as we got in. Then I started cooking a curry meal for us as we have not made one for some time. It was a mix of the usual ingredients – onion, pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms supplemented by a diced apple, some sultanas and a modicum of brown sugar. I dish up Meg’s before my own because I only put the curry into the mixture afterwards and then Meg gets hers served on some white rice whilst to keep the carboydrate count down, I utilise a rice cake and a couple of cream crackers in place of the rice. We always add a dollop of plain yogurt to the top of the mixture to finish off the meal.

This afternon, I had an unexpected burst of pleasure. Whilst doing the delayed washing up, I turned on ClassicFM and when I tuned in, the transmission was half way though the first movement of the Mozart clainet concerto. To my delight, the broadcast carried on playing both the second (slow) movement followed by the third movement. Whether ClassicFM do this quite regularly (ie. play the whole of a work instead of just a movement from it) or whether it was just a one off, I cannot say. The combination of the DAB mode in the kitchem hifi and the wonderful reverberations in the kitchen (as there are no soft furnishings to absorb the sound) made the perfomance particularly enjoyable. This particular piece has quite a lot of significance for me. I first heard it when my art/music teacher who had a cubicle in the dormitory (as all the dormitaries had in those days) smuggled in a record of the concerto and played it on a little portable record player which he had acquired from somewhere. As it happened, about two or three of us in the small attic dormitory were in bed because it was the height of the Asian flu epidemic in 1957 and, as I remember it, as many as two thirds of the class could be absent when the epidemic was at its height. The second and slow movement of the clarinet concerto is particularly memorable because our son won the school music competition for his renditon of it when he was aged about 14. The adjudicator, who was a Professor of Music at York University, awarded the prize to our son because of the degree of expressivity and feeling for the music of Mozart – our hearts swelled with pride upon hearing the news. But after that a combination of enthusiasms of Deltic locomotives, photography and young women (in which order I cannot say) meant that the clarinet playing became a thing of the past. But then Meg and I were on a brief half-term break with our son in the city of Bath- and as we passing the small Georgian theatre in the town, we noticed that the famous clarinetist Jack Brymer was to be playing the Mozart clarinet concerto and also on the bill was Marisa Robles, the world famous harpist. We enjoyed the concert enormously and even managed a few words with Jack Brymer after the performance. More recently, a local orchestral player of real talent played the concerto in our local church which acts as a venue for concert performances for the Bromsgrove festival held in the summer months.

Although the news broke yesterday, the media is today taking the Committee of Privileges report into Boris Johnson’s possible misleading of Parliament as very serious news. But allies of the Prime Mnister are trying to minimise the impact of the interim report from the Privileges Committee. Mr Johnson has also said it was ‘surreal’ the committee proposes to rely on evidence ‘culled and orchestrated’ by Sue Gray, who was a highly regarded top civil servant. The committee has defended its probe insisting it is ‘not based on the Sue Gray report’, which last year detailed lockdown-breaking, booze-fuelled parties in Downing Street during Mr Johnson’s leadership and played a role in his downfall. As always on a Saturday evening, one awaits the full in-depth analysis provided by the Sunday papers and whether Johnson receives any support (or fails to gain support) from the trawl around the TV studios on a Sunday morning. Evidently, the oral evidence that Johnson will give to the committee may well prove interesting viewing as the Committee have already decided that Johnson probably misled the House of Commons on about four occasions.

Being a Friday, it was a day when we might meet up with some of our Waitrose gang. We were delighted to meet one of our pre-pandemic friends and, shortly afterwards, our University of Birmingham friend turned up and we spent a hilarious half hour or so. I am not sure what we find to laugh about but laugh we do. We spent a certain amount of time talking about the films and TV series in which we have taken particular enjoyment and then it was time for us to leave, but not before we had done a little bit of shopping for extras. When we got home, we watched some of the political news of the day on the BBC2 Politics programme just after midday and then it was time for lunch. As we cooking a bought haddock pie in the oven, I parboiled some sprouts (which I wanted to use up) and a carrot cut into sticks and then finished them off in the oven with some oil and a dollop of honey. All in all, we had a very pleasant meal. After lunch, we used the BBC i-player to catch up up the next episode of a series that we are starting to watch and which has been recommended to us by several people.

Feeling refreshed after lunch, I decided to have a further little ‘go’ at the occasional mahogany table which I restored yesterday. There was still the faintest sign of a circular ring so I attacked this with a kettle of boiling water, a tube of toothpaste, some stain, some furniture polish and a hairdryer in various combinations. To my dismay, but not complete surprise, I succeeded in dispersing the original stain somewhat but to a wider area of the table so being somewhat perfectionist, I had a an imperfect renovation now made somewhat worse. However, I did various rubbings way of the stain I had used and the furniture polish and then reverted to a warmed dishcloth with quite a wide weave and a drying off on paper towel. It now did not look too bad so I put it back into place, complete with a little coaster mat in each corner and table lamp the design of which is a near perfect match with the coasters. Once I had got everything back into place, to my amazement I could scarcely tell in which corner I had been trying to effect improvements. Perhaps the hairdryer had faciliated the removal of some stain inducing water vapour from underneath the varnish but in any case I now have a table which is completely ‘fit for purpose’ which does not look evidently damaged as was the case when it was purchased and which is now renovated to my satisfaction. I think I draw three morals from this little saga. The first of these is undoubtedly to ‘quit whilst you are ahead’ and know when to stop improving things. The second is not to try to be too perfectionist in one’s little activities but try and find a sweet spot between the ‘this will do’ point and the point where the repair is as good as it can be. The third point is that in any handicraft or do-it-yourself activities, one can be beset by a host of misfortunes (when things do not go quite right) and fortunes (when things, by chance, turn out just right and sometimes better than anticipated)

There are two big political stories today which the Tory party are desperately trying to link together. The Committee on Privileges is the House of Commons committee investigating Boris Johnson for misleading the House of Commons over the illegal drinks parties held at the height of the pandemic in Downing Street. Today the committee has published its initial report, saying the Commons may have been misled multiple times. For his part,Boris Johnson has taken to the airways claiming that the interim report vindicates his account that he was not informed of the illegality of any social gatherings. The second story is the fact that the senior civil servant who investigated and then reported upon ‘partygate’ (Sue Grey) has now been appointed by Keir Starmer as his ‘Chief of Staff’ – an enormously powerful role if and when the Labour party forms the next government. Some members of the Tory and in particlar Nadine Dorries, an ecstatic Boris Johnson supporter, is arguing that Sue Grey was evidently a closet Labour party supporter, was not therefore impartial and therefore the whole enquiry which led to the resignation of Boris Johnson was in effect a stitch up. Most of the informed comment is that these two events are not connected but the timing of the two events within 24 hours of each other is unfortunate. Boris Johnson will give oral evidence in about three weeks time and they wil have to determine whether Johnson knowingly misled Parliment. ‘Knowingly’ wil be hard to prove – and does the Committee on Privileges use the criteria of ‘balance of probabilities’ or ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ Even if the Committee does find him ‘guilty’ the sanction imposed will be interesting – beyond a suspension of two weeks or so, then Johnson could be subject to recall by his own constituency association where he does not have a huge majority in any case.

Thursday is my shopping day so I presented myself bright and early at the doors of the supermarket, which opened a minute or so early for a change. Then I got home and got the shopping unpacked and the breakfast cooked. Meg and I felt like a little toddle out rather than a full scale walk in the park and I had a little venture in mind. Meg came with me and fortunately, I managed to get parked fairly near to the shop that I wished to visit. This was the Age Concern furniture shop on the Bromsgrove High Street where there was a little piece that I have been wondering about. This was a delightful little mahogany side table but you could see why it had not been sold and was constantly rejected by people who walked past it. This was because in one corner there were was a fairly bad ‘white ring’ stain evidently caused by a hot cup of some kind and there were some very minor little scratches on the top as well. Nonetheless, I had a word with the furniture manager and I pointed out that she had it in stock for weeks and that it might be possible (or it might not) to alleviate the damage to it. We agreed a 30% reduction so I bought the table for £3.50 (the price of a cup of coffee, which is my unit of currency these days) and then, after lunch, I set to work giving it a general clean up and tackling the damage. At first, I tried my simple stain cover which I have used successfully in the past but this was not sufficient for the job, which was no surprise. So I went on the web to see that others had suggested. Apart from the hairdryer suggestion which I rejected there were two other home-made remedies. The first of these was to use a vinegar and olive oil mixture to rub into the stain but this was pretty ineffective. But then I tried another solution which was to try rubbing with toothpaste and a rag dipped in boiling water. After an appropriate amount of elbow grease, I managed to reduce the bad stain by some 80-90% which I think is about the best that can be achieved. I gave the finished product another slight coating of stain and followed it up with a bit of polishing up using a wet wipe designed for cleaning windows. This actually works by spreading out the stain to a beautiful fine and glossy patina so now was the time to get the table into position in the corner of the room lit by a small table lamp. I had a spare set of quite elegant coasters with a floral design that are a pretty good match for the lampshade so all in all I am quite pleased with my afternoon’s work and the effect I have been trying to achieve.

This afternoon there have beem several stories competing for attention on the airways, not least the discovery of the dead child born to the couple who have been avoiding the attention of the police for the last few weeks. The police have also indicated that the baby might have been dead for several weeks. But at last Boris Johnson has given his reaction to the deal that Rishi Sunak has negotiated and this has presented Johnson with a bit of a dilemma. In view of the favourable reaction of many Tory MPs and the fact that the DUP (Unionists in Northern Ireland) are still considering their position, then outright opposition is likely to leave Boris Jhnson out on a limb. Instead, he has given a rather nuanced response in which he is simultaneously arguing that ‘we have to hope’ that the deal is successful. On the other hand, he has indicated that he himself could not bring himself to vote for the bill and would find it very difficult to back it, not least because the bill of which he was the author to unilaterally suspend part of the NI Protocol will now have to bite the dust. In all probability, Johnson desperately wanted the Sunak initiative to fail and its very relative success is a constant reminder to him that Sunak had achieved with the EU a deal which had eluded both him and Teresa May. Some commentators are making the point that this refusal to back the bill presents Rishi Snak with a dilemma – does he withdraw the whip from Johnson which,in effect, expels him from the parliamentary party? There are some voices that are saying that Johnson has been well and truly ‘put in his box’ which is probaby a very accurate assessment of his position. The view in the Twittersphere is that Johnson is ‘toast’ and good riddance but of course the contributers to Twitter are hardly a reresentative sample. Again, this story may develop as the days unfold.

The final report into the Manchester Arena bombings some five and a half years ago has been published today and whilst criticism of our security services is rare, it does look as though MI5 have really taken their eye off the ball in this instance and the whole bombing episode should have been anticipated and averted.

Today is the day when our domestic help calls around and this is always the opportunity to have a laugh and to catch up on family news. As it still one of these days when the rain seems intermittent, Meg and I waited until we were showered and breakfasted before we decided how to spend the rest of the morning. After consultation with our domestic help, we appreciated that we needed to buy some cleaning products and we also needed to buy some cosmetic products. We decided to limit our activities to a walk along the High Street in Bromsgrove where we popped into a couple of shops to replenish our supplies of toiletries and cleaning products. This having been done, we made for home and had our coffee and biscuits in front of the TV anticipating that we would watch Prime Minister’s Question. We actually got home somewhat later than the start of this but I am not sure that we missed anything of real significance. There is the expression that ‘nothing succeeds like success’ and Rishi Sunak seemed buoyed up by his recent success with the renegotiation of the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol and the enthusiastic support of his supporters in the House of Commons. No doubt, many Tory MPs feel that they have something to cheer about after all of the Tory infighting that has occurred in the last few months and Boris Johnson, so often a seeker after the limelight, has been conspicuous by his silence.

A big story that has broken politically is the release of thousands of WhatsApp messages from the phone of Matt Hancock which suggests that he ignored scientific advice that elderly patients be COVID tested before they were released from hospital and into the care sector. Sky News reports that Matt Hancock allegedly rejected COVID-19 testing advice for residents going into England’s care homes while he was health secretary during the worst of the pandemic, according to a report based on thousands of leaked WhatsApp messages. The Daily Telegraph claims that chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty had told Mr Hancock in April 2020 that there should be testing for ‘all going into care homes and segregation whilst awaiting a result’. But the leaked messages suggest Mr Hancock rejected that advice, telling an aide that the move ‘muddies the waters’, instead introducing mandatory testing just for those coming from hospitals. Today the Hancock camp is claiming that some of the relevant emails were read out of context and that some of the reporting in the Daily Telegraph articles is factually incorrect. The Prime Minister is trying to wash his hands of the whole affair by saying that any investigation of the veracity of these claims should be left to the official inqury into COVID which has only just started. The Daily Telegraph, for its part, is indicating that it has a lot more material that will be released on a sort of drip-feed basis for as long as they feel that the story has currency (and helps to sustain the leadership) From this distance, we can say that the Government was desperate to clear the wards and get elderly people into care homes. We also know that it was too early in the progress of the pandemic for medication to prove its efficacy and, of course, vaccines were still to see the light of day. One gets the feeling that this stpry will run and run, so long as the public are still interested in it. Certainly, the relatives of elderly people who died having contracted COVID from infected patients recently discharged from hospitals into the care sector are unlikely to let the matter rest.

Tonight, Channel 4 reports that after an investigation which they had undertaken, the Acting Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police had used the phrase ‘regretful sex’ when referring to the ways in which rape investigatins are pursued. The individual concerned has made a vehement denial that he had ever used a phrase such as ‘regretful sex’ in one particular meeting a year ago. Two other participants in the meeting have been contacted, one of whom has admitted that the phrase was used whilst another had no recollection of it. So the Channel 4 charge is that there is a massive degree of misogyny embedded in the Met. The whole issue has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and I wonder what kind of evidence they will seek in order to investigate this matter. From the point of view of the outside observer, it is hard to ascertain what has really gone on in this case but what does remain true is that the proportion of accusations of rape that eventually lead to a successfull prosecutions remains abysmally low. In England and Wales, more than 99% of rapes reported to police do not end in a conviction. This is the result of a criminal justice system that makes prosecuting rape extremely rare, lengthy and difficult. This is undoubtedly an area where there is a need for radical improvement but it does appear that statistics for successful prosecution for rape are at an all time low. We are told that the police are taking this crime much more seriously but there is little hard evidence that this is the case.

Today was both wet and gloomy so we were quite pleased that today is the morning when we traditionally meet in Waitrose to have a coffee with friends and acquaintances. We were joined, as we usually are on a Tuesday, with one of our pre-pandemic friends whose musical career we are following with interest. This lady of quite advanced years has taken up again one of her past-times which is singing in a choir. Every week they are rehearsing Braham’s Requiem in its totality which must be quite demanding as the whole performance must be about an hour in length. Mind you, our friend started singing this piece back in 1961 so I should imagine that about sixty years of singing the piece, she ought to know it by now. But of course, the pandemic meant that all choir-type activities had to be set aside for a few years and of course one’s voice ages and changes with time. Whilst on the subject of singing, we tend to sing about three or four hymns at the service on Saturday evening. Typically, we would have an organist and sometimes we evidently have a chorister who knows the hymns well and sings them with a quite a degree of gusto so that the rest of the congregation who typically do not know the tunes can start to contribute more from the second verse onwards and any refrains of course. Last week, I found myself having to sing higher and higher and I am sure I was attempting to sing in a counter tenor range. Perhaps the organist starts off in a key that she thinks is within the range of the female members of the congregation but I was finding the range far beyond me. Eventually I had the courage? temerity? to start singing at least one octave lower and possibly two octaves lower in the equivalent of a bass voice and this I found I could manage a lot more comfortably so once I get settled on the correct starting notes an octive lower, perhaps I shall make this my default mode from now on. We chatted on with our friend for about half an hour, mainly about musical topics such as the instruments upon which we had been encouraged to play as youngsters. I suspect that most young girls of a particular age and generation tend to have a combination of piano lessons and/or ballet lessons to see if they have any natural talents. I suppose boys are pushed in the direction of football teams each Saturday morning but of course many school playing pitches have been sold off over the decades which cannot help youngsters develop any of the skills they may have. When we visted small Spanish towns in the decades when we wished to visit Spain regularly, it was quite common for each smallish town to have a football pitch arond which there was a running track which always seemed an excellent idea. But athletics and football because of their different historical roots have scarcely ever shared faciliies in this way which I have always felt was a geat shame. When you listen to young athletes in competitions, it is interesting how many of them start in one discipline and decide to have a dabble in another at which they find they are very much better. Do most long jumpers always start their athletics careers as sprinters I ask myself? And when it comes to rugby, the young men (and women) who start off in Rugby League and then change codes to Rugby Union nearly always seem to be excellent sprinters and show the opposition (and their team mates)) a clean pair of heels.

I walked down to my Pilates class in the middle of the day and by chance bumped into one of our Irish friends who invited us round for coffee and a chat next Sunday, to which we shall look forward. We had a few snatched words as our friend was enquiring about Meg’s health these days and gave us some useful advice. Then it was my Pilates class as usual but there were only three of us today so we were a little bit dowwn on our more normal four – which is still quite a small class. On my way home at this time of year, I like to spot in people’s gardens what appears to be budding. There are daffodils bursting out all over, as you might expect and a goodly number of snowdrops often found in clusters underneath some trees. But I was particularly looking out for crocuses which I think are quite sparse at this time of year. I know that certain birds play havoc with young crocus flowers but one expects to see a real abundance of both the orange and also the purple varieties at about this time but perhaps I am not looking at a very representative sample of gardens.

Today, it is interesting to see what the reaction of the Tory party is going to be to Rishi Sunak’s New Windsor Framework to deal with the Northern Irish border problems post Brexit. The reaction so far has either been positive or neutral and the Tory MPs on the extreme right of the party are merely putting it about that they are studying the text of the agreement and the deal before they are coming to a judgement on the deal as whole.