The carers turned up a little late today and with a change in personnel but as the senior carer was the manager who puts himself on shift every now and again, I did not really mind. This morning proved to be an interesting one. It was the most beautiful day and we enjoyed the walk down into town through the autumn sunshine. As soon as we saw our friends, we were delighted to learn that it was the birthday of one of them and she treated us to some birthday cake which, by now, has become a tradition between us of one of the Waitrose chocolate offerings. I suddenly felt a pang of remorse at not having bought a birthday card for our friend so I shot off to another part of the store to buy a suitable offering. The one I chose is a traditional one for people of a certain age (like all of us) and was the visual joke of a couple of cows chatting in one field but one of them was displaying the hindquarters of a zebra and was saying to her companion ‘I am not completely sure about that recent hip operation’ Whilst chatting between us, I asked one of our friends whether she took her porridge pats and grind them a little smaller in a blender/grinder in order to make them simulate the finer packets of porridge oats that are sold in sachets for instant heating in the microwave. Our friend informed us that she did this regularly so I promptly went and bought a new supply of oats only to discover that the Waitrose ‘Basic’ version of oats was less than half the price of a neighbouring branded alternative. So when I got home, I located our Braun blender/grinder which I have not used for some time but will wait until Meg is asleep tonight and I will try some experimentation. I did try some in a pestle and mortar the other day but I am sure that there must be an easier and faster way of producing finer milled oats which will fit the breakfast bill. It is easy enough for us to add our own squirt of honey and so this has breakfast sorted out being the nutritional recommendation of some slow release carbohydrate to set oneself for the morning. On our way out of the store, we were presented with a beautiful bunch of roses which the relevant ‘partners’ put in our direction rather than throwing them away when they are past their sell-by date but they are always gratefully received. On our way up the hill, we noticed that a South African Asian lady that we know and have around for tea on one occasion was in the process of selling her house. We had not had the opportunity to have a chat for about a year now but she was in the process of moving to Droitwich, the Worcestershire town which is just down the road, as it were, and which we used to visit regularly when Meg could get into our car. We exchanged the news of what had happened to us in our respective lives before we each went on our way. Later in the morning, we entertained the carer who was coming for Meg’s Tuesday ‘sit’ with a view of the video we had made of Meg giving a 50th anniversary wedding speech some seven years ago now and other reminiscencies of our student life in the 1960’s. Then we made ourselves a quick lunch of a tin of chicken on some microwavable rice and petit pois which is one of those meals that one cam throw together in 5-10 minutes when the need arises. After lunch, it looked as though we were going to have a fine afternoon so we seized the opportunity whilst the weather was fair to get the front lawn cut. This will be the penultimate cut of the year and was certainly badly needed -I was amazed at how much the grass had grown in the last ten days.

One particular news item has caught my attention. This relates to the shooting dead of a young black man about two years ago and where the police marksman was charged with murder. The Crown Prosecution Service must have been convinced that there was a reasonable case to answer, not least because the car was travelling backwards away from the police marksman at the time of the shooting. When the verdict of ‘not guilty’ was announced, I was quite surprised given the details of the case that had been released. Members of the black community and some Labour MPs were going to demonstrate outside the Old Bailey later in the evening. However, there have been developments as the day has developed. Details have been released of evidence that the young black man killed by a police marksman was himself a gang member, had entered a night club recently in order to shoot presumably a member of a rival gang and himself had evidence of having recently fired on a gun on his own clothing. The issues that are raised are these. It appears that when the marksman fired the shot, he did not realise that in front of him was a member of a criminal gang but was justice actually served? The question remains whether the police did realise what was going on because the car that was used was also under suspicion as having been part of another criminal venture so in this very tangled story, do we have a case that the police did act too hastily in the original shooting and were then vindicated because, by their own account, it was a happy accident that they had actually got their man? This is a very tangled and confusing story but the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service itself took the decision to prosecute a serving police marksman must mean that they had considerable suspicions about the events and motivations of the whole case. Of course, we shall never get to the bottom of this. The details released today indicate that Chris Kaba was a core member of a notorious south London gang and accused of being the gunman in an alleged bid to murder a rival in a nightclub shooting days before he was killed. The 24-year-old’s gang links, previous convictions and violent past can be reported for the first time after Metropolitan Police marksman Martyn Blake was cleared of murder and the judge Mr Justice Goss lifted reporting restrictions.

Yesterday, before I came to bed, I decided to reinstall a banking app on my new iPhone – they had warned me in the EE shop that I would need to reinstall this app because as a security option, it would not transfer from the old phone to the new. This turned out to be quite a long and complicated procedure and involved taking photos of my driving license front and back, making a video image, speaking some numbers to get a voice sample and so on. But eventually, I got the app to install on my new iphone and can now view some banking information via the app. I was delayed getting to bed last night because when I had installed our new TV a year ago, I had used a facility to access the web and had constructed a link that allows a viewing of the videos (i.e. speeches) made on the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations. The video clip I was particularly interested in viewing was a completely improvised speech that Meg made off the cuff and unscripted some seven years ago now and as her illness started not a great deal later, it was interesting to access this for the record. Later on in the day and after lunch, I showed these videos to Meg and I think that she remembered making the speech all of those years ago now. It was a rather gloomy day today and we found ourselves a little short of time because the care workers came a little bit later this morning. So we confined ourselves to going down into town, picking up the newspaper and then wandering along the High Street to eventually visit the AgeUK shop where we had a quick browse around without making a purchase. Then we made it up the hill in time for the scheduled carer who, as it happened, did not arrive but another worker turned up half an hour later. As I had previously rummaged around in our freezer for something or other, I found some parsnips that I thought we could well eat up and I popped these in the oven and made a meal with some petit pois and some of the beef that was cooked yesterday.

The government have instituted an NHS public consultation exercise in which it is hoping to glean the views of the public, NHS staff and any other interested parties. But is already being admitted that any real changes in the NHS might not come into effect until next April. But Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, made some interesting observations today.’I suppose you could say, well, you should just come in and impose your view of change…I would just say to people, be careful what you wish for…The last time a new health secretary came in after a general election where their party won power, that was Andrew Lansley….The Conservatives after 2010, who came down with a massive top-down reorganisation that nobody voted for, nobody wanted, cost billions and set the NHS up to fail.’ This is all relevant information but one can already say ahead of consultation what it is that most people would prefer. The single biggest complaint must be the difficulty in getting through and making a GP appointment and this is probably followed by the length of time that is taken for a treatment to start or a hospital procedure to be undertaken. So probably the biggest reforms that could be instituted would be to say a GP who one knew well and who could ensure a good continuity of care – one might almost say the reinvention of the principle of a family doctor. I seem to remember a research report that indicated, probably on the back of some international evidence, that patients who had a long term relationship with one GP tended, other things being equal, to suffer less illness taken in the round and to live longer. Perhaps a model could be tried where two GPs and a physician associate formed a little ‘pod’ who were solely responsible for a group of patients. Another government ambition is to do something about patient records so that they are more accessible and are more transferable to other interested parties such as hospitals. But there is a big problem in just assuming that you throw an app on a smart phone to many of the elderly and the elderly elderly who do not have the digital skills enjoyed by younger generations. There may be solution to this problem, at least in part. I noticed an advert in ‘The Times‘ for a very simple phone (made by Samsung) designed with the older generation in mind (big buttons, a few large icons and the like) Is there a case for an NHS ‘access phone’ that is sufficiently simple for many of the older generation to be able to employ?

Harris currently leads in swing states worth 36 electoral college votes, vs 27 for Trump, with states worth 31 effectively tied. There are less than two weeks to go until election day but even then, we might have to wait for a result for weeks more. I heard an interview with a Professor of Politics from Birmingham University who was explaining that already the Trump camp has an army of lawyers ready to pounce upon the slightest morsel that would enable to challenge a tight result that does not go their way. The postal votes have to be counted and there are probably some overseas votes to be counted as well. A clear cut victory for either side looks incredibly unlikely and one wonders what chance event might occur in the next few days to nudge undecided voters in one direction or another. But all of the major opinion polls seem to point in the same direction i.e. that an already close race is getting closer and closer. I still have the feeling that Trump will claim (and perhaps even gain) victory even if he is very marginally behind and, of course, he has a veritable army of supporters who will come to claim victory of the result is very close. Bill Clinton used a remark to clarify what was uppermost in voters’ minds with his famous phrase ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ and that is even more true now. The absence of authoritative national media in the US (but a plurality of news outlets, not to mention pollsters) plays into the hands of the Trump camp because they seem to have successfully implanted the notion that the economy fared worse under Biden than Trump. The most basic measure of the economy is how much it grows. The official data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are clear: After inflation, real GDP has grown at a 3.4 average annual rate since Biden became president, while Trump trails badly at an average 1.8 percent growth. But perception is everything and in this case, the public perception is that Trump outperformed Biden (although that is not the case)

Yesterday, Sunday, proved to be quite an interesting day. Meg and I got up after a fairly good night’s sleep and the care workers arrived promptly at 8.00am to get Meg up, washed and dressed. We tend to watch the Politics programmes on a Sunday morning but as I am traipsing to and fro from the kitchen preparing our porridge and toast for breakfast, I often only see the program in brief snatches and such was the case today. However, the evening before I had put our recently purchased beef joint into our new cooking pot and doused it well with some ‘old’ red wine that had been open for a week or so. This I supplemented with some onion gravy and then popped the whole into the oven to cook whilst we went out for the morning. After breakfast, we received a visit from our Eucharistic minister who we have not seen for a week or so now and after she had departed, we were delighted to get a phone call from our University of Birmingham friend. We were delighted to accept his invitation for a coffee down in Waitrose and actually spent an hour and a half in each other’s company which we found mutually enjoyable. We ruminated on the fact that we both enjoy a good argument by which I do mean a disputatious disagreement but rather an exploration of the extent to which you come to a position on the issues of the day by exploring each other’s point of view. Today, for example, we were exploring what we both felt about the ‘Assisted Dying’ bill recently presented to Parliament and we were exploring how we both felt about this issue. After exploring this issue between us, I feel slightly less in favour than perhaps I was some time ago but will feel assuaged, in fact, if the hospice movement receives full and proper funding so that no one should die in extreme pain or discomfort if the end of life is properly managed for them. So then we returned home in time for the late morning carers (who were themselves half an hour late) and then started to think about lunch. Fortunately the beef was not too over cooked as it was cooked with plenty of wine and gravy but then I cheated a little, as time was pressing, and used some of the supplies of microwaved vegetables that cook in about three minutes. I was mightily relieved to discover that the new Denby cooking pot which I purchased in the last week and pressed into service this morning actually cleaned up pretty easily despite having been in the oven for the best part of three hours. After lunch, I had two programs lined up for us to watch in the afternoon. One of these was the rugby match between Leicester Tigers and Gloucester and we watched about twenty minutes or so of this witnessing Gloucester making a flying start. Then we turned to a program broadcast on Channel 4 the previous evening and one that I particularly wanted Meg and I to watch together. It was called ‘Churchill: Britain’s Secret Apartheid’ and we both found it a fascinating watch. It revealed what might be called a hidden part of Britain’s history. During WW2 after the USA entered the war, some 100,000 black troops were sent to Britain outnumbering the local black population about 12:1. The documentary revealed that the Americans wanted to enforce the strict segregation between the white and black troops and also revealed that the black troops were used as ancillary staff (cooks, labourers and so on) in support of the white troops who would be engaged in the eventual fighting. But the Americans attempted to enforce a type of apartheid (with which Churchill felt he had to comply as Britain needed American manpower, firepower and money) The programme revealed how open hostilities broke out between the white and black soldiers with the local indigenous English population taking the sides of the black soldiers against the white. The mood amongst the English locals was that they grateful for the Americans coming to our assistance whatever their skin colour but had no appetite for ‘de facto’ American style apartheid, enforced by the (white) military police. Open battles lasting for hours took place both in Tiger May (Cardiff), Bamber Bridge in Lancashire and the streets of Leicester. It may come as no surprise to learn that several black soldiers (but not a single white soldier) were charged by the military police with a range of offences including several deaths. All of this is available in official records if one knows where to look and full credit to Channel 4 by making a documentary as shocking as this.

The long anticipated Budget is due to be delivered in about 10 days time and, apparently, there is an unusual amount of behind the scenes tussle as ministers desperately try to defend their departments against Budget cuts whatever the official line of the government. On this occasion, the negotiations between the Treasury and individual ministers is quite intense and there is a report today that if there is the predicted rise in the National Insurance contributions paid by employers rather than employees this could bankrupt the care home sector. This may or not be the case and to the outside observer, it is hard to discern how much is the normal sabre rattling and how much is a dire warning of the actual consequences of budget decisions. The newly appointed ministers have a pretty terrible time during these pre-budget discussions as the senior civil servants who actually run the department will judge how capable is the minister nominally in charge of the department according to how well they have done in the Budget negotiations. Normally the Treasury which is an old hand at these pre-budget negotiations and representations will get its way but then ministers are bound by collective responsibility even if they have lost out. As an example of pure political naivety, the junior minister who was holding the ‘Grenfell fire disaster’ brief has been forced to step down because she rather stupidly attended a conference in which one of the major sponsors was a firm heavily criticised in the enquiry and the minister, by her attendance, looked as though she was actually endorsing the actions of the firm. The Grenfell survivors, through their representatives, let their displeasure be known to the right quarters after which Rushanara Ali, the minister concerned, was stripped of her brief.

Yesterday, Saturday, I was just on the point of going to bed when my iPhone sprang into life with a FaceTime call from my sister in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. She had left hospital on Thursday afternoon and so had spent the best part of a couple of days in her new surroundings in a residential home. So far, the facilities and the care staff seem to be excellent although my sister had a somewhat rocky start to her stay when the care staff were not sure how they could her comfortable when she is lying in bed and when the pain intensifies. In addition, my sister encountered a ‘Server error’ when trying to access this blog and so she wondered what was going on. We had a fairly lengthy conversation and, of course, she is in her own room and not on a public ward and so we could chat. I suspect that my sister could do with both a specialised hospital bed (which alters its shape) and perhaps also a specialised mattress so I encouraged her to push for this to be provided for her. I also gave some alternative links to the website of the blog because it may be something to do with the permissions surrounding the domain names rather than the actual server or the website itself. I have managed to get it to work OK and have sent my sister some links that ought to help. In the meanwhile, I was also encouraging her (and the rest of the family) to invest an up-to-date smart TV (perhaps, as we have done a brand-new TV but a lot cheaper because it is the model of one or two years ago) plus a YouTube subscription. Meg and I watch a film or a concert on YouTube and life without it would actually be unimaginable. When the carers called around this morning, one of them was a young girl who had gone off to university but just returned to do one or two ‘bank’ sessions at the weekend. She was suffering from what she called ‘Freshers’ flu’ where youngsters at university exchange rampant viruses with each other so to alleviate her symptoms I gave her a Lemsip which we always have in our kitchen drawer ready for the autumn and winter colds strike. As normal, we walked down into town and had a fairly lively conversation, at one stage laughing so much that the staff from the store wanted to join in. The story of mine that occasioned the laughter was my account of the elderly German tourists we used to see on the beaches of La Coruna in Northern Spain. After more than half a century of bathing topless, their skin looked brown and leathery and I explained that upon viewing them afar, it was akin to seeing a group of old ladies with leather handbags swinging on their chests. Then upon our return home I received a phone call to enquire whether I could assist the one carer in a late morning call to which I agreed readily. The care manager has let me download an app which means that I can read live all of the comments that the carers make on each visit but the app does not, at this stage, give me access to the visit schedules for the day ahead which would be very useful in our case. Last night, Meg was 90% asleep because the ‘put to bed’ call was delayed by an hour and an almost asleep person is so much harder to get undressed, washed and put to bed. This afternoon proved to be rather frustrating. At one stage, the weather looked fair and I thought I would seize the opportunity of giving the front lawn their penultimate cut of the season. But then it clouded over and I thought I had better wait until the threat of a shower had passed. Then the weather brightened up again, Meg started to have one of her agitated spells so my original plan was thwarted as I thought I could not even leave her alone outside in her agitated state whilst I was cutting the grass. So I stayed indoors and did my best to calm her down with an old-fashioned antihistamine a doctor had prescribed on one occasion and which he thought might help to ease spells of agitation in the afternoon. I covered Meg with a fairly large double blanket and put on a Mozart Piano Concerto available to us on YouTube and this worked to a small extent – the lawns, though, remain uncut. I am hopeful that the weather stays bright and relatively warm for a day or so that I can seize whatever grass cutting opportunities present themselves.

Sky News is reporting that Donald Trump has finally outdone himself. His rhetoric has long been extreme but, in campaign remarks as it heads towards a close, it’s more so. Asked about ‘bureaucrats undermining you’ in a second term, he replied: ‘We have two enemies: we have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries….We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary by the military.’ Critics have interpreted the remarks as a threat to use the military against political opponents, even though he would need to be president to try. They accuse Trump of shaping an authoritarian agenda – true, they say, because it is laid out in his own words. To the committed Trump supporters, of course, this is music to their ears and demonstrates why they feel that Trump is the new Messiah who has come to save them from the so-called ‘liberal’ establishment. But how this plays out with the uncommitted ‘middle of the road’ voters in the swing states is, of course, the critical question. Conventional political wisdom is that politicians should moderate their stances in order to try to capture the middle ground. But many observers have commented upon the fact that Trump does not play the political game by the conventional rules – and to some is not regarded as a politician at all. There is an alternative and rather frightening narrative that Trump is attempting to force the middle ground to ultimately back him and hence for the ‘middle ground’ to break into opposing camps with the calculation that there will be more who are persuaded by him than repulsed by him. But if the rhetoric is to be believed, then a Trump presidency may result in mass military action against his own population but would the military obey? In case we think that such madness is confined to the other side of the Atlantic, our own Kemi Badenoch in her Tory leadership campaign suggested that up to 10% of civil servants should be imprisoned for being enemies of the state and thwarting the desires of a future Conservative government.

Yesterday dawned as a fine bright day but the day did not get off to the best of starts. The care agency that looks after Meg sent me a text indicating that the call this morning would at 8.30 and then be cut down to 30 mins. So I got up rather more slowly this morning only to be greeted by two care workers at about 8.10 saying that their rota had been altered yet again. So I had to do a certain amount of running around in my pyjamas which was not the best start to the day. However, as Friday is now the day that our domestic help calls around and we always look forward to seeing her again this morning and to exchange news – she helps to keep Meg on an even keel in the mornings as she goes about her tasks. She was inducted into the translation of our Harry Potter blanket with the Latin slogan and then I showed her the cotton weave blanket, John Lewis quality, which I had previously washed and had airing in our airing cupboard. Our domestic help managed to find a very similar article using the John Lewis website where it sold for over £60 so we were pleased to get one for less than £5 and she indicated that if she had seen it in our local favourite AgeUK suburban outlet, she would have bought it herself. After we had had our coffee with our University of Birmingham friend down the hill, we just about got back in time for the late morning carers and then after they had completed their visit, we started to think about our lunch. I decided to make some risotto again this morning using a recipe which I know works very well (starting with some fried onions, then adding the arborio rice for a minute to fry, then adding the chicken stock, one half of the mackerel fillets and finally topped up with a good dollop of yoghurt and some grated cheese) We made enough for our domestic help to take some risotto home for herself and her husband and Meg and I really enjoyed the meal that we had this lunchtime. In the afternoon, I started to prepare for a long and protracted telephone call with EE to query my bill and to demand the removal of a service which they had inserted which I did not want or need and certainly did not wish to be charged for. But when I was preparing for my telephone call with EE, I consulted the latest bill to find it was at about normal levels and the next bill showed me as about 38p in credit rather than the large amount that they were threatening to take. Quite frankly, it was difficult to ascertain exactly what was going on but it could be that when I bought the new phone over two weeks ago, a bill was prepared which was then amended in the light of the comments I made to the EE staff in the shop at the time but might have taken several days to work their way through the system. To resolve this issue, I am going to wait until Meg is sound asleep this evening and then spend some time going through my accounts to see exactly for what I have been charged over the last week or so. In the meantime, I have another issue that the EE staff might be able to resolve in that the old SIM was transferred to my new phone and a new TescoMobile PAYG SIM inserted into my old phone, only to discover that when I receive a call, I seem to get it on the ‘new’ and the ‘old#’ phone simultaneously even though the numbers are evidently different. However, one of tech savvy care staff who also has an iPhone managed to solve the problem for me (which involved the tweak of some settings as I suspected).After breakfast, we got a call from our University of Birmingham friend and were absolutely delighted to see him in Waitrose as we often do on a Friday.

The recent assassination of the Hamas leader by the Israelis (which by all accounts was a sheer stroke of luck as a routine Israeli parol ran across some victims of a recent a strike) has led to much tougher language from the UK and other European governments. Keir Starmer has said: ‘What is needed now is a ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, immediate access to humanitarian aid and return to the path towards the two-state solution. That is the only way to deliver long term peace and security; the humanitarian situation cannot continue. And I say once again to Israel, the world will not tolerate any more excuses on humanitarian assistance. Civilians in northern Gaza need food now.’ To use a phrase such as ‘will not tolerate any more excuses’ indicates a degree of exasperation with the Israeli leadership which is almost unprecedented for a staunch ally. This sentiment is probably shared in the USA as well but, of course, the contenders for the presidency dare not say anything that seems to indicate that the USA tolerance for the Israeli prosecution of the war is decreasing. Biden went as far as he dare giving the Israelis some 30 days to open up more supply routes of aid and medical supplies into the stricken areas. But this only seems like a slap on the wrist and, in any case, a period of thirty days covers the period both before and after the American presidential elections. The very stark truth is that far from being a complete client state of the USA, the Israelis are ‘de fact’ being given a free hand to pursue whatever policies they desire. It is now self evident to most commentators that the most right wing government that Israel has ever known will tolerate nothing else except what they define as the complete elimination of Hezbullah and Hamas. But even of they were to succeed in these war aims, Israel still have a range of neighbouring states ranged against them, including Iran, Syria and the Yemen. Even if peace were to be declared tomorrow, the question tat is increasingly raised is ‘What happens on the first day after the war has ended?’ There are two massive questions of which the first is such as what type of government will emerge in Gaza and, secondly, who is going to pay for the enormous amount of reconstruction of an urban society where most of the private and public buildings end in ruins. The same question was asked, of course, after the conflict in both Syria and Iraq and it was plain that no forward thought, let alone planning, had been conducted about should happen when hostilities came to an end. At this stage, all that is left to contemplate is a whole series of refugee camps which may well exist for decades and must be locations where political radicalism and hostilities to the Israeli state will only fester and increase.

Yesterday was an interesting kind of day. Thursday is my shopping day and the carer called around at the appointed time and I prepared to go shopping. But upon my return, about an hour and a quarter later, I discovered that Meg had had a period of acute anxiety whilst I was away shopping and the carer had quite a difficult time with her. Having said that, I think that the carer had coped with Meg very well and had read her a couple of stories and done other things to divert her. But when I got home, Meg was still in rather an agitated condition but very gradually calmed down. After the shopping had been slowly unpacked, it was time to think about lunch and I scoured the freezer to see what could be rustled up as I wanted to save the mackerel I already had out of the freezer until tomorrow. I discovered something with no label but once it had been cooked in the microwave, I discovered that it was actually a ‘Boeuf à la Bourguignonne’ portion I had saved from the last time that I had cooked it as a special meal for Meg’s cousins when I last entertained them.

The news media has been absolutely saturated today with the news of the untimely death of Liam Payne, who shot to fame in the band One Direction, who died at a hotel in Argentina after falling from a third-floor balcony. Payne, 31, was posting on social media only hours before his death. Alcohol and medicines such as clonazepam were found in his room. The hotel authorities in Argentina have revealed an audio, possibly to avoid any accusations of blame, that he had been high on a cocktail of drink and drugs and was trashing his hotel bedroom. He fell to his death from a third floor balcony and when the news broke late on Wednesday evening, all kinds of interviews were interrupted with a news flash about the singer’s death. But at the risk of sounding very curmudgeonly, this was a young man of whom I had never heard, part of a band of which I had never heard and the music of which to my untrained ear sounded nothing out of the ordinary. There was masses of footage, played over and over again of female teenage fans lighting candles outside the hotel where he had perished but the amount of media attention devoted to it seemed to me to be massively disproportionate. This afternoon after we had lunched, I treated Meg and myself to something that I spotted in last night’s TV schedules. As the renowned actress Maggie Smith died very recently, I was not surprised when the BBC broadcast some of her most memorable performances, One of these is the almost completely true story of ‘The Lady in the Van’ which is the story of a derelict old lady who parks her van, which is also her home, first outside and then on the drive of Alan Bennett the playwright, who was living in Camden Town. This was endured for the best part of fifteen years all in all and part of the denouement of the film is that the old lady thought that she had been responsible for the death of a motor cyclist years before and was, in effect, on the run from the police. Maggie Smith as absolutely magnificent in the portrayal of the old lady and the film was both poignant and comic at the same time. After Meg’s carers had called in the afternoon, we treated ourselves to a rendition of Mozart Piano Concerto No 23. This has always been a particular favourite of mine since a 10″ LP was bought for me by my music teacher in about 1960 and I played it endless times. The second movement is incredibly sad and one can almost the tears through the notes. By contrast, the third movement is joyous in the extreme and one can imagine that the metaphorical cheque had arrived in that morning’s post. This was a performance in which the pianist actually conducts the orchestra from the piano which is almost certainly what Mozart himself would have done. This was followed by another Mozart piano concerto (probably 21) and was just as enjoyable.

The political news has been dominated by the assassination (or as the Israelis say, elimination) of the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar. I learned today that every single leader of Hamas has been assassinated by the Israelis and they are naturally jubilant. I saw an announcement made to bathers on a seaside resort on the Israel coast and there was universal celebration. The important question is whether this brings a ceasefire any closer or not. Netanyahu is saying that the war must continue until Hamas (and Hezbollah) are completely eliminated but I am not sure you can eliminate an ideology. Killing your opponents may be very satisfying to one’s electorate and the military but I cannot see how it advances the course of peace as resentments and recriminations must build up in the generations ahead. Meanwhile domestic politics is intrigued by two stories that are running. One is concerned with the forthcoming budget and whether Rachel Reeves may be able to pull ‘rabbits out of a hat’ There is some evidence that the electorate are being softened up for big tax rises with talk of a £40 billion black hole but on the other hand, there may be some plans afoot to sweeten the pill somewhat. The other interesting story concerns the backwoodsmen of the current Tory Party. A Tory MP has suggested Kemi Badenoch won’t have time to be an effective leader of the opposition because she’s a mum of young children. Sir Christopher Chope told ITV Meridian’s ‘The Last Word’ she is ‘preoccupied with her children. You cannot spend all your time with your family at the same time as being leader of the opposition’ he added. One can only imagine the derision about the voicing of such attitudes and naturally the Labour party and others are piling in gleefully to denounce such remarks – and, of course, Tories are put into a position where they either have to defend their colleague or effectively to disown him or to distance themselves from such remarks. Incidentally, similar remarks were never made about Margaret Thatcher when she had young children, as I am sure that many will now point out but, of course, Margaret Thatcher could afford to employ a full-time nanny, so that is all right then.

It has been an interesting day for economic news which is mixed. On the positive side, the rate of inflation has dropped from about 2.2% to 1.7% which is much bigger drop than predicted. This news will be particularly welcomed by the government as the September figure is the one that is used to uprate some benefits next April and this lower rate of inflation will lower the total bill. It also makes a decrease in the Bank rate slightly more likely as well. The more grim economic news is that the £22 billion black hole that the government argue is the legacy left by the last Tory government has just grown to £40 billion. The government is saying that this increased figure is necessary to ensure that deep cuts are not made to departments across the board. It might be that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, will be able to magic up some money when she presents her budget in two weeks time. There is some talk of a highly technical nature of calculating government debt in a slightly different way that gives the government some unspecified billions to play with. I seem to remember that George Osborne when he was Chancellor managed to find £8 billion from the back of the proverbial (government) sofa and Rachel Reeves may be trying to emulate this. But it is a cast iron certainty that there will be pain for higher level tax payers when the budget is announced and adjustment to the ways that pension ‘pots’ are taxed may be the clue here. Historically, we may be aware of the famous quote attributed to Louis XIV’S finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who famously declared that ‘the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.’ When it comes to taxing companies, a modern finance minister might rephrase this as ‘the largest possible amount of revenue with the smallest possible amount of economic and political damage.’ If we had to find new sources of revenue, I have thought it should have been possible to have taxed each Amazon delivery by a small amount. You would have thought it was easy to have found the number of deliveries that Amazon make in the UK each year but if the information is out there, it is really obscured. I have managed to find out share of the market, global figures including the USA but a simple figure like UK deliveries evades me. On a conservative estimate based upon sales, though, I should think that 50p on each of £20 billion of UK deliveries would generate £10 billion whereas a 1p increase in income tax, by way of comparison, would generate approx £5 billion in revenue. These are very much back of the envelope approximations but one gets the idea. After breakfast, which was a little delayed this morning, we decided just to make a quick trip down to Waitrose to pick up our newspaper and a supply of milk. We were delighted to bump into our Irish friend whose husband was having an investigation under general anaesthetic yesterday morning. But his wife informed us, to our delight, that she had got him home safe and sound at 1.30 in the afternoon, the procedure had gone well and her husband was not in any pain or discomfort afterwards which is surely a relief all round. Our friend also kindly gave me a rainproof guard that I can put over Meg if it comes on to rain very hard when I am pushing her down the hill.She does get wrapped up quite warmly with our huge and newly acquired Russian military blanket across her knees, a windproof and rainproof jacket on, a Manchester University scarf dating back to 1965 and a little multi-coloured crochet blanket across her knees which Meg likes to poke her fingers through. When we got back, the carers came for their late morning call and the to the younger ones who have read any of the Harry Potter stories of J K Rowling, I show the Hogwart’s blanket (now used as a decoration on the back of our sofa) and explain the meaning of the four word Latin motto of ‘Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus’ (‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon’) The carers often joke with me that they always leave the house just that little bit wiser than when they entered.

We lunched on the remains of the spicy chicken with a baked potato and some broccoli finished off with some nicely flavoured yogurt. Over lunch we idly popped onto YouTube and were delighted to continue the viewing that we had of ‘The Genius of Mozart’ which we had started viewing yesterday but the viewing was interrupted by a call from the carers. I always learn something new about the life of Mozart and I learned a little more today about ‘The Magic Flute’ which does not have the wit and sophistication and, dare I say, political undertones of ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ (which had to be taken off after only nine performances as the portrayal of servants getting the better of their aristocratic masters made the Viennese audience of the time rather uncomfortable) In ‘The Magic Flute’ specifically written for a German audience but knowing that the skill set of the orchestral members was not of the highest, Mozart deliberately made much of the score less demanding so that it would not be beyond the capabilities of the orchestra playing for the opera. Yesterday afternoon, we noticed on YouTube a quick advert for the J B Priestley play ‘An Inspector Calls’ and although we have seen it lots of times before, we never fail to enjoy it. This play is a favourite with amateur dramatic companies because all of the action takes place in one middle class dining room but the play is gripping in its intensity. The author, J B Priestley, makes no pretence of his socialist leanings as he ruthlessly strips away middle class pretensions and hypocrisy. I mentioned it to some of the carers who knew of the play because they had read it at school and, indeed on YouTube, when the viewing was ended there were some other offerings such as ‘Pass Notes’ to help teenage viewers make intelligent comments upon the play in subsequent examinations. I find it interesting to note that sometimes Meg can get well and truly absorbed in these quite detailed scenarios that we view in the afternoon including a viewing of ‘Room with a View’ with an outstanding cast that we viewed recently on ‘Film on 4’ catchup under the Channel4 banner on our smart TV.

Yesterday being Tuesday, Meg and I pop into our nomal ‘Tuesday’ routines. Earlier this morning, I had seen my son and communicated the latest bit of family news to him. My sister who has contracted COVID has been moved to a specialised COVID bubble where she was visited by suitably masked and gowned daughters last night. She texted me to say that her symptoms were not severe at this stage and she actually felt worse several days ago before a diagnosis had been made. I had a restless period in the night but took the opportunity of getting some documents printed off and occupied myself with a bit of internet browsing. After breakfast, Meg and I popped down the hill to meet up with our three Waitrose friends. Afterwards, as Tuesday is a ‘sit’ day, I popped out for 20-30 minutes and visited our small local AgeUK shop which is not on the High street and bought a beautiful Denby 3 pint oven pot with lid in which I can cook stews and soups in the winter months ahead. I am bringing our soup maker back into commission these days but need to remember exactly the mix and the programs which have proved to be successful in the past.

One would have thought that after the spate of riots by the far-right over the summer months, these were completely home grown demonstrations. But an investigation by Sky News has revealed that much of the mis-information spread onto the internet came from a continental source. In a business park on the edge of town of Strasbourg, Silvano Trotter runs a successful telecoms business but he spends much of his time posting online. He came to prominence during COVID, publishing anti-vax posts, and getting banned from YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, before subsequently being reinstated on Elon Musk’s rebranded X, where he posts mainly about immigration. When the Southport stabbings happened on 29 July, he posted false information to the messaging app Telegram that they were carried out by an immigrant who had arrived on a small boat and gave the false name Ali Al Shakati. Our investigation shows that his post was one of the most influential of any of those making similar misleading claims on Telegram. Silvano Trotta’s post spread misinformation about the Southport suspect’s names and he shrugs it off when I point out that this was entirely false. He has worked with Prose, an open-source intelligence start-up, to understand the online conversation around Southport on Telegram, the app where the stabbings were discussed, the narrative was developed, and the riots were organised. Prose monitors more than 10,000 extremist and conspiracist groups on Telegram, every day collecting and archiving everything they post. Together, we looked at how active those groups were around Southport, starting on the day of the stabbings and for two weeks afterwards, looking at 11,051 total messages from 1,496 different chats and channels. And what we found belies the idea that this was just a British reaction to a British issue. Out of the top 20 most influential accounts, in terms of reach, views and interaction, only six were from the UK. The rest were based abroad. Out of the top 20 most influential accounts, in terms of reach, views and interaction, only six were from the UK. ‘While all the action is happening on the ground and people in Britain are dealing with the consequences of this misinformation,’ says Al Baker, managing director of Prose, ‘the people stoking the violence, the people flooding Telegram and other platforms of misinformation are largely based outside the UK.’ What it shows is the nature of the new far-right – not a tightly organised hierarchy based in a specific location, but an international network of influencers and followers, working together almost like a swarm to stir up trouble. And it is extremely worrying for the security services. The head of MI5 Ken McCallum last week told Sky News that, compared to traditional radicalisation, the extreme right instead relies on a ‘pick and mix ideology’ where people pull on hatred and misinformation from mostly online sources. Rather than specific organisations, it is, he said, a ‘crowd-sourced model’.

We are now just three weeks away from the American presidential election and it looks as though the already close race is tightening still further. The poll of polls still puts Harris marginally ahead of Trump by about 2.4 percentage points but this seems to be down compared with a lead of about 3.5 percentage points about a week ago. All of this is within sampling error as well because historically these presidential polls could be ‘off’ by as much as 4%. In the seven swing states, it appears that Harris is marginally ahead in four of them but Trump in the other three. One gets the feeling that the final result will be decided by just a few voters in a handful of electoral districts in one of the seven swing states.The abortion issue still sways voters in the Harris direction whilst the general state of the economy and feelings about the economy incline voters towards Trump. It looks as though economic issues may be losing Harris some voters amongst the young Hispanic and Black male populations where Trump seems to convince voters that he has a better handle on economic issues. This whole election is filling me with a certain degree of foreboding. As the result gets tighter and tighter, then the number of contested decisions and appeals against the result will grow and grow. This may mean that the actual outcome of the election will not be known for several days as recounts and retabulations take place. Even if Trump were to lose by the narrowest of margins, this would never be accepted by the Trump ‘shock troops’ on the ground who would cry ‘foul’ with the loudest of voices and it is not inconceivable that some of the election officials, more and more drawn from the ranks of the Republican party, may attempt to ‘bend’ the result in Trump’s direction. In the last three weeks of the election campaign all kinds of unpredictable things might happen. For example the recent hurricanes sweeping across Florida might just play out in Trump’s direction if some voters believe his claim that hurricane relief funds are being diverted towards recently arrived migrants.

Yesterday being Monday, we think it is probably a good idea to make a trip along the High Street and do a little shopping whilst making our way to ‘The Lemon Tree‘ All seemed to go well with our shopping and we had our favourite bacon sandwich in the cafe before we needed to make off for home. But before we did, we could not resist a quick peek inside the AgeUK furniture store. Within it, I did discover though an interesting blanket inscribed with a Latin motto which was ‘Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus‘ Of course, aficionados of popular culture will immediately recognise this as the motto that was chosen for Hogwarts Academy in the famous Harry Potter series of books. It it popularly translated as ‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon’ but a somewhat more grammatically accurate translation would be ‘Sleeping dragons should never be tickled’ I wondered if this was all meant to be an elaborate joke but found, on the web, J K Rowling’s own thoughts on the subject: ‘You know the way that most school slogans are thing like persevere and nobility, charity and fidelity or something, it just amused me to give an entirely practical piece of advice for the Hogwarts school motto. Then a friend of mine who is a professor of classics – my Latin was not up to the job, I did not think it should be cod Latin, it is good enough for cod Latin spells, that is they used to be a mixture of Latin and other things. When it came to a proper Latin slogan for the school I wanted it to be right, I went to him and asked him to translate. I think he really enjoyed it, he rang me up and said, “I think I found the exactly right word, ‘Titillandus'”, that was how that was dreamt up.’ So there we have the definitive answer as it were. Having got the blanket home, I put it into the washer for a normal wash but then as it was 100% polyester, I made sure it was dried using the coolest of settings and the shortest of times in the dryer from which process it seems to have emerged unscathed.

But on a more serious note, I also was the recipient of some not very good news by text. My niece had previously sent me a link to the residential home in Knaresborough where it is hoped that my sister would take up a place on Wednesday next. But the text I got informed me that now my sister has COVID, acquired no doubt since she has been in hospital which she entered last Tuesday so it has taken about 4-5 days into her stay to acquire the infection. I do not know my sister’s vaccination status although I am pretty sure that she would be up-to-date in this so I earnestly hope that the infection is both mild and easily treated. However, this is bound to delay her entry into the residential home until she tests clear and this must be a period of several days but I am not sure how long. I am in contact with my niece about other sequelae from my sister going into residential care so I will have to wait for some more up-to-date news in that direction.

For Meg’s teatime call, one of the managers who regularly undertakes a shift came on duty along with another of the more regular carers and he imparted some interesting news to us. The care agency company is starting to expand its operations by opening a day centre and the manager wondered if I would be interested. Meg would be picked up in her wheelchair some time after 9.00am and then the day centre would operate from 10-4. During this time there would be a good ratio of carers (1 to every 3 clients), they would be given lunch and a lot of activities organised before being brought home at 4.00pm. I put this idea to Meg when she was in one of her more lucid moments and we thought we would give it a try. Although there is a charge for the day, some other slots would be released e.g. my shopping slot, my Pilates slot so this would help to finance most of the additional cost. I am going to email the manager to indicate our willingness to participate, if only for a trial basis, and to ask him to firm up some of the costings for me as well. So this might be an interesting development and if Meg can stand the separation from me and enjoys the day, this must be all to the good. I also informed the care manager about my sister’s COVID diagnosis and he informed me that when this happens locally, there needed to be two clear consecutive days when one is tested negative before discharge from hospital could be contemplated.

The big political news of the day is the way in which the Labour Party is trying to woo international investors with a big conference for global investors. The government may be moderately pleased with today’s results as the Chancellor was able to announce that some £60 billion of inward investment had been promised (but, of course, might not materialise) What I found more disturbing is that the Government were advertising that they abolish a lot of regulatory red tape in order to attract this international investment. But it was this just this lack of regulation and enforcement that led to the Grenfell disaster from which it appears that the government has not learnt. So far, the Labour government is making exactly the same noises and inducements to investors that a Tory government might make but one would have thought that a Labour government should have seized the opportunity to underline the fact that some regulation is in the best interests of everyone, not just accepting the fact that regulation is automatically problematic and ought to be minimised. Some of the big international investors are arguing that an over regulated economy is inimical to big inward investment but it is hardly surprising that this is their argument when they see potential profits being reduced. Whether regulation does cause big investment to be restrained is a big question as some of the ‘threats’ may be just a sort of grandstanding that are not meant to be taken incredibly seriously but can be seen as a sort of negotiating stance with the government of the day. In terms of international regulation, the UK economy probably comes in the middle of the pack in any case.

Yesterday, being Sunday, we pop into our normal Sunday routine. I have been asked to be the ‘second care helper’ to assist the one (rather than two) care workers who get Meg washed, up and dressed in the mornings but at least I was forwarned about this and I like working with the allocated care worker (who is undergoing nursing training) in any case. It has always struck me that handling patients as a care assistant in a care agency is an excellent way of getting literally hands-on experience that must make nursing studies so much more relevant.

The political world awoke yesterday, Sunday, to the news of the untimely death of Alex Salmond, the one time leader of the SNP in Scotland. He had been attending a diplomacy forum in Northern Macedonia, had recently delivered a speech and was photographed with the other forum delegates. One can only surmise that he suffered a massive heart attack (now confirmed) as he was only 69 years of age. Alex Salmond has been described as the ‘Marmite’ of Scottish politics as love him or hate him, you could not ignore him. The adjective most used about him is that he was ‘monumental’ and in many ways he stood head and shoulders above all of the political leaders of his generation. His later years were marred by allegations of sexual misconduct for which he was tried but subsequently acquitted but this forced his resignation from the SNP that he had led for many years. He founded his own political party, Alba, to continue to campaign for Scottish independence until the day that he died. It was the 2012 agreement he signed with then British prime minister David Cameron to hold a referendum on Scottish independence that may be most widely remembered across the UK as his legacy. Some would argue if it were not for the political talent of Alex Salmond, there would have been no Scottish independence referendum at all in 2014. Whilst the Scots parliament is constituted with a degree of proportional representation, under Alex Salmond’s leadership the SNP achieved a degree of prominence that held a remarkable sway over Scottish politics and, of course, Alex Salmond, was not only the leader of his party but the Scottish First Minister. Tributes have been paid to him from all parts of the political spectrum, including even the King ad there seems to be a universal feeling that no one can quite believe that he has gone at such a comparatively young age. Alex Salmond served as first minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014 and was leader of the SNP on two occasions, from 1990 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2014. He resigned as first minister after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum resulted in a 55% to 45% vote to stay in the UK. He launched his rival Scottish independence party, Alba, in 2021 after his relationship with his successor Nicola Sturgeon fractured.

After we had viewed the Politics programmes, Meg and I went on our way down the hill to collect our Sunday newspaper. This journey there and back turned out to be more eventful than usual. On our way down, we met some near neighbours who taking care of a dog for a friend and they were taking it for its daily exercise. They had hoped that the dog would do its business whilst out for a walk with them but despite a tramp of several miles, this event had not yet occurred. Then we bumped into our Irish friend and wished him well for the investigatory procedure which he is going to have on Tuesday next. As the day was a little cooler than of late, I had Meg wrapped in the new, and recently purchased, Russian ex-military blanket and she was also dressed in a warm jumper, a Manchester University scarf and another croqueted woollen blanket across her knees. On the way back, though, some of this arrangement started to unravel and the large military blanket fell to the floor (twice). This occurs when we go over the ‘bobbly’ bits on pavements of which there are many so I am going to have to find a new technique to wrap it around Meg somewhat more securely. The journey down the hill is relatively straightforward as apart from a steep uphill section to join the main Kidderminster Road, most of the journey is a fairly gentle downhill.Also, over the weeks, I have no compunction in wheeling Meg down the slip road rather than the adjacent pavement as the tarmac is so much smoother and the cambre more favourable.The journey back apart from one or two severe sections is not as bad as might be imagined as if the slope is a gentle incline, then the weight of my body propels the wheelchair forward, But on the way back and half way up the hill, my fingers start to feel the pressure and to get numb or tingle. To help to counteract this, at the half way point, I don a pair of rubberised gardening gloves and this help a little to relieve the pressure on my fingers. Upon our return, one of the more experienced workers turned up and we both predicted that the second detailed carer would not turn up and indeed she did not. So for the second time in the day, I was detailed as the second carer. Starting from next week, I am going to document each of these instances because they are becoming rather too frequent.

In the late afternoon, I FaceTimed my sister in her hospital ward. Her two daughters happened to be there at visiting time so we managed to have a general chat. My sister is still in a certain degree of pain but looking forward to some respite care in a local residential home in Knaresborough which sounds as though it might foot the bill, being both near her family doctor and not too far away from her two sons. This respite care may well turn out to be a little more permanent but we are taking things one or two weeks at a time. My sister seems to have her mind committed to full residential care as she has lost so much confidence about coping at home, particularly at night when typically there are no care packages available. The costs seem pretty enormous so the family are making calculations about how long my sister’s capital will last before the family home will have to be sold to continue to pay for her care.