Yesterday morning, being a Saturday, we made our way down the hill to meet up with friends in Waitrose. On our way down the hill, I bumped into our Irish friend who reminded me that her husband was due to go into hospital as a day patient next Tuesday. However, he had been asked to take with him an overnight bag in case he needed to be stay in hospital for the night. With a certain degree of black humour, we joked that soon the hospitals would request that you also take with a body bag in case this should be needed after the procedures had been undertaken – but we said that our friend would be in our thoughts and prayers nest Tuesday. When returned home, we did a ‘quickie’ lunch that turned out to be delicious – it was the remains of bits of chicken cooked in a white lasagne and chicken gravy mixture that we served up on a bed of rice, itself enhanced by some petit pois, The whole thing turned out to be quite like a risotto without my starting out with this intention but it was delicious all the same.

The newspapers yesterday were full of the fact that the new Labour administration had been in power for their first 100 days – and the verdict was anything but favourable. Keir Starmer’s personal ratings had dropped like a stone to -33 (disapprove over approve) which is a drop of 44 points since his post-election high, while one poll put Labour just one point ahead of the Tories. A poll out this weekend by YouGov finds nearly half of those who voted Labour in the last general election feel let down so far, while six in 10 disapprove of the government’s record so far, against one in six who approve of the Starmer government. It is interesting to reflect why the first 100 days in office is important and this is for three reasons. Firstly, it sets the tone of what the new government is likely to achieve. Secondly, it demonstrates the momentum of the new administration – when governments have been in office for a long time as the last Tory administration, then they run out of ideas and look tired and jaded, whereas an incoming administration is bursting with new ideas and policies. But the most important factor about the first 100 days is what has actually been achieved. The first 100 days are when a newly elected government is at its most powerful as it has the goodwill from the recently won election to fall back upon and some of the vicissitudes of office have not yet had to chance to hit them. In the case of the Starmer government, there has been one notable success which is the way in which the riots fuelled by the far right swept across the country but some fast and decisive action by trying the perpetrators quickly and putting them in gaol certainly did the trick. But this one success has been completely overshadowed by the perception of sleaze in accepting free gifts from wealthy donors with which to buy clothes and holidays. The Labour sleaze is miniscule compared with the Tory counterpart but in the public’s mind, it feels about the same which is unforgivable. The new government does not seem to have a grip on affairs as is demonstrated by the shambles inside No. 10 and Keir Starmer has demonstrated a completely ‘tin ear’ to the public mood. For a recently elected Labour government to reduce the winter fuel payments enjoyed by old age pensioners, including the poorest ones, and then accompany this by surrounding oneself with ‘freebies’ shows a lack of political disconnect which is astounding. What else are political advisers for if not to issue warnings to the Prime Minister and the power centres of the new government about the public mood and what people are saying on the doorsteps? No wonder that those who support the Labour government and may have wished it well are metaphorically holding their hands to their heads in disbelief.

This whole episode of the early days of the Labour government has reminded me forcibly that governments are at their most powerful when recently elected and I could resonate with this. When I accepted the position of head of a (small) department in what is now the University of Winchester, I appreciated that the earliest days of my tenure were probably the most important to me. The then head of Faculty had made the journey to Leicester before I took up my appointment both to get to know me better but also to stress the priorities that lay ahead of me. It was stressed that the most important thing was to get a Business Studies degree validated and recruited as soon as possible. I had been thinking my way into the role of a Head of Department for many years and accordingly, I set to work in the construction and writing of a Business studies degree very much in my own image. I needed to recruit people around me who shared my image of the future and to sideline those who bitterly opposed my appointment by being the unsuccessful candidates for the post that I was to occupy. To cut a long story short, I managed with the able assistance of some willing colleagues to write and get validated a Business Studies degree which then recruited a couple of dozen students all within my first year. This was an almost unprecedented pace for a small and rather inexperienced college but I had a fair wind behind me and took every opportunity whilst I could. I learnt later that this speed and decisiveness of action excited some admiration, particularly as I was teaching almost a full timetable at the same time. I reflected ruefully that when the college came to establish a Law degree, they recruited a Principal lecturer to write it but he took two years to do it and had no students to teach in the meantime. I offered him the hand of friendship and collaboration when he was first appointed which he declined so I had little to do with him. I did this because in the past, I had taught sociology on the Law degree at Leicester Polytechnic (the CNAA demanded that even a single subject degree had to be ‘liberalised’ by exposure to another discipline) and I shared an office and taught alongside law colleagues on the Business Studies degrees at Leicester and hence my disappointment at the rejection of my hand of friendship. But had I dithered or acted less decisively when I first took up my post, my subsequent career and that of the Business Studies department would have taken a very different course.

Yesterday, Friday, turned out to be a strange sort of day. We knew that in the late morning, we were due a review visit by the social worker who has supervised Meg’s case for the past couple of years together with the two managers from the care agency. Our domestic help turned up yesterday and we exchanged stories of what had happening to us. In the case of our domestic help, she had needed to cope that a friend had contacted her to say that her husband had died in his sleep at not a very old age. We briefly discussed my sister’s situation in North Yorkshire and by the time we had breakfasted a little late, there was no time to make a trip out before the meeting with the social worker. But our domestic help brought along a belated birthday present for Meg, consisting of a scarf with good little pockets built into each end of which I am pretty sure Meg will enjoy. I popped out to get the daily newspaper and our domestic help had very sensibly decided to give Meg a breath of fresh air at the front of the house. She had also brought along some nice pastries from Waitrose so Meg spent a good half hour enjoying the sunshine, reading the newspaper and entertaining the cat (Miggles) who had made himself at home by stretching out in the sunshine at our feel, not neglecting the opportunity to sneak inside the house when the opportunity arose. Our University of Birmingham friend had phoned earlier in the morning and we decided that as time was rather pressing, he would call around this afternoon. So we spent a pleasant hour or so in the sun at the front of the house, regaling ourselves with tea and a pastry our domestic help had thoughtfully given Meg this morning. The afternoon passed so much more quickly when we had the best of company and we spent a certain amount of time our interactions with social work and care agencies.

The meeting with the social worker and care agency staff in the middle of the day turned out to be ‘interesting’ I had requested the review visit because both the Admiral nurse (who specialises in Meg’s condition) and the care agency staff themselves thought that there was a case for a fifth visit on Meg’s care package to cope with the occasions when Meg is very agitated and stays awake for hours after she has been put to bed. However, by adjusting the timing of the late evening medication and adding on some Piriton, we have had a succession of nights when Meg has got off to sleep more easily. The long and the short of it all was there was no extra funding for a fifth visit and although I could go through a long ad complicated review process, the likelihood of ultimate success was small. The underlying message seemed to be that as you are coping as well as you are even with Meg’s declining condition, there is no justification for further support. Paradoxically, if I had pleaded a complete inability to cope, I was at the end of my tether etc, then some extra resource may have been forthcoming but there was no guarantee of this. All of this reminded me rather of the fact that I had been here before. In my 20’s, I was hit at a T-junction by a driver who had fainted at the wheel but the day after fled to the USA. After attempting to sue the individual through is insurance company, the chances of success were only 50:50 as one had to prove that an unconscious person is at fault and all of the legal precedents were against us. One had to prove though, how badly injured one was in order to maximise the likelihood of substantial damages. I actually rehabilitated pretty well despite two broken legs and therefore the amount of compensation was radically reduced. To complete this story, I accepted £2,000 of which £1,400 went back to Leicester Polytechnic leaving me with £600. The essential similarity between the two scenarios of both then and now is that the more one can show one is rehabilitated/can manage then the less the available resources will be. So I am rather left in a sort of abandoned state, but also wondering whether I am subject to a dependency culture and I should be grateful for every element of help that I do receive.

There is a major stand off brewing this evening between a massive global conglomerate, DP World and the government. The government’s Investment Summit has suffered a major blow after ports and logistics giant DP World pulled a scheduled announcement of a £1bn investment in its London Gateway container port, following criticism by members of Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet. Sky News understands the Dubai-based company’s investment was due to be a centrepiece of Monday’s event, which is intended to showcase Britain’s appeal to investors and will be attended by the prime minister and Chancellor Rachel Reeves. In March 2022, P&O caused huge controversy by sacking 800 British seafarers and replacing them with cheaper, largely foreign workers, a move it said was required to prevent the company from collapsing. Announcing new legislation to protect seafarers on Wednesday, Ms Haigh described P&O as a ‘rogue operator’ and said consumers should boycott the company. In a press release issued with Ms Rayner, Ms Haigh said P&O’s actions were ‘a national scandal’ and Ms Rayner described it as ‘an outrageous example of manipulation by an employer’. While Ms Haigh has previously criticised P&O’s actions, the strength and timing of the ministers’ language undermined efforts by the Department for Business and Trade to make the Investment Summit a turning point for the government and the economy. There is a real difficulty here in the way that governments deal with multi-global conglomerates who have massive economic leverage. The way that P&O Ferries operated at the time was scandalous by sacking their long established, generally British crews and immediately replacing them with labour typically from India. Hundreds of business leaders and investors, including representatives of US private capital and sovereign wealth funds, will attend the event in the City of London, as the government tries to drum up billions of pounds in foreign investment to fund its plans. But is the government forced to turn a blind eye to the most outrageous of employment practices in order to curry favour with a big investor?

Yesterday, Thursday, turned out to be quite an eventful day. Meg and I had a good night’s sleep which is happening a bit more frequently these days. But it is true to say that Meg had a slightly wakeful and agitated period during the night but I managed to held her hand (from my camp bed which is on the same level as her hospital bed) and this helped to calm her down and drift off to sleep again. Thursdays are my shopping days so we had one of our usual shopping events save that the ATM outside the Morrison’s supermarket had the not very helpful message across its screen ‘Free to use – no cash available’)I have a theory that the older generation who prefer to shop with cash turn up early on a Thursday morning and make repeated calls on the two machines. But this is about the third Thursday on a row that the machines were empty of cash. Due to another short term staffing crisis at the care agency, I needed to be helper No. 2 for Meg’s midday call which is about the third time this week i.e. somewhat more frequently than I would like. But we knew that the principal event today was going to be the arrival of the wheelchair specialist to see if Meg’s chair needed any special adaptations. I had just about got the lunch (chicken in a chicken soup and lasagne sauce, served with a baked potato and broccoli) well and truly cooking when the wheelchair specialist turned up together with an OT who was evidently still in a training phase. The wheelchair specialist, an ex push bike specialist) was actually very good. We now have a specialist cushion fitted which has a gel seat which moulds to the body and slightly raised and shaped guides for the upper thighs. In addition, there is now a specialist seat belt fitted which is all to the good. Finally, we come to the all important ankle straps and fittings. Unfortunately there was a strap that was still needed that had to be of the requisite width but the wheelchair specialist had to acquire these and was coming back at a later date to fit them. However, now that Meg’s posture may well be improved by the new cushion and the retaining strap, it may be that Meg will sit better on the now adjusted foot straps and the new ankle supports may not be needed. If all else fails, I still have my home made solution ready which has served us well over the last month or so.

The care workers that we have on a regular basis are now settling down into quite a pleasant routine. Although there are occasions when I am called upon to help out the regular workers, they sometimes themselves do go the extra mile. In the afternoon, I was quite amazed to open the door and see one of the young male Asian carers who calls every day standing on the doorstep with our adopted cat, Miggles, in his arms. The cat, who is quite streetwise, seems to view from a great distance whenever the carers arrive and often sits on the doorstep waiting for the door to be opened and knowing that the can insinuate themselves inside once the door has opened. The fact that the cat allowed itself to be cradled by the young carers I find quite amazing because of late the cat has transferred some of its affections from me and towards the bosom of one of the attractive female carers but such is the faithless nature of the feline species. Once again, though, we were going to be shorthanded putting Mg to bed in the evening but the young Asian carer decided to forgo meeting up with a friend and has made himself available for a later time slot so that he can help put Meg to bed. I am very grateful for these little instances of carers going beyond the calls of duty and for my part I always make them welcome, thank them for their work on their departure and do my best to make the whole of the visit a rewarding one for them.

As though the actual damage caused by the Hurricane Milton was not bad enough, then the political fallout is still continuing. Donald Trump claimed (falsely) that disaster relief funds were being diverted to migrants. But the most bizarre claim came from Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia, who was now saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather. Greene said last Thursday in a post on X: ‘Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.’ It was part of her claim that the Democrats were controlling the weather for their own political advantage. Biden retorted in televised remarks at the White House that ‘It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s so stupid. It’s got to stop’ I also noticed that he was now being much more forthright in his criticism of Donald Trump who has continued to peddle complete untruths as the hurricane was advancing. The death toll is about 10 which may well rise but is nowhere the death toll that could have been the case if warnings had been ignored. It was being called ‘the worst hurricane in a century’ but in the event the actual wind speeds were a little less than the predictions. But it is the surge waters as well as the wind that causes a lot of the damage and Florida as a whole is waking up to the fact that reconstruction is going to cost billions of dollars and may well take several years. That part of the world has had to learn with hurricanes and associated tornados on a regular basis but climate change has probably contributed to making an already bad situation so much worse. In the UK, we have a constant debate (particularly, as it happens, in the catchment area of the River Severn which floods regularly in Bewdley, a nearby town) as to how and where flood defences should be constructed. But I think there is now a realisation that alleviating floodwaters before they hit the concrete of the towns and turn roads in rivers is a better long term solution. But this calls for land management on a large scale and might involve some tree planting, ‘overflow’ areas adjacent to rivers and so on. In the UK, we seem to have been spared some of the worst flooding but I think it often occurs in the Spring and at Eastertime rather than in the earlier stages of the winter.

Yesterday is the day when our domestic help normally calls around but I had forgotten she was not due until Friday this week. I particularly wanted to discuss my sister’s state of health with her and to solicit advice on the best way forward. As our domestic help also works in a residential home, she is well aware of the range of provision currently out there ‘in the market’. My sister appears to be in the best of hands at the moment and even has her own small room which I think is tremendously good given that she is a standard NHS patient. The unit in the Harrogate District hospital is called the ‘Acute Frailty’ unit. I found the following very informative information on the NHS website: ‘The NHS Long Term Plan states that all hospitals with a 24 hour A&E will provide an Acute Frailty service for at least 70 hours a week, with the aim to complete a clinical frailty assessment within 30 minutes of a patients arrival in the Emergency Department. Identifying and assessing frail patients within a few hours of their arrival to hospital enables them to be treated by multi disciplinary teams in a timely manner. This means they can be discharged to their usual residence sooner, especially if a hospital admission would offer no additional benefit. Early identification and assessment of frail patients allow services to adapt their vulnerable adults’ care.’ I had not heard of these units before but they sound a very sensible innovation as the NHS evolves and, of course, it may help to alleviate the perennial problem of bed-blocking. Today has turned out to be rather a peculiar kind of day. We had not anticipated going out as we thought that our domestic help would turn up today so we stayed in this morning. But some deliveries (a couple of blankets) arrived from Amazon which I could put to an immediate use. This morning, by an unfortunate accident, all of Meg’s beaker of tea was split all over my bed so I needed to wash all of the bedding, including the duvet cover and this was quite a task. But it did give me the opportunity to build up the layers of bedding on my camp bed, ending with a newly purchased double blanket which will serve to keep all of the others in place. This morning, I assisted the manager get Meg up and dressed – this non-appearance of workers and my helping out is occurring more and more regularly these days. Moreover, when the second worker does not turn up is often first thing in the morning which means that as well as my normal running around to get things in place, I also need to act as a second helper.

After lunch today, Meg and I watched the second half of the Klu Klux Klan program, on YouTube and the two part work is entitled ‘An American History’ The second part brings the history of white attempts to dominate the political agenda right up to date and so although the Klan does not exist in its prior incarnation, it has spawned a whole ecology of fringe right wing groups who made their presence felt when the US Capital building was stormed and will no doubt again in the forthcoming election which is now less than a month away. Returning to domestic politics, there seems to have been a major and unanticipated upset in the elections being held amongst Tory MPs for their next party leader. After yesterday’s vote in four candidates were reduced to three, it appeared that James Cleverley on the basis of some impressive conference performances and speeches had all of the momentum and was a clear front runner. But in today’s election he came third (by one vote) and was therefore eliminated from the two names that go forward to the party membership in the country. Kemi Badenoch topped the poll followed by Robert Jenrick and so the wider membership will be asked to choose between two right wingers. The Labour party are reported to be rubbing their hands with glee because a more right wing leader of the Tory party will not appeal to the centre ground and undecided of the electorate when we get to that stage. In the meantime, we are left with a result that few predicted. The Tory party has been described, when it is in an electoral mode to choose a new leader, to be the most duplicitous electorate in the world which is one description whilst another is to make a compassion with a pit of snakes. What happens when the electorate is only 120 MPs, is that all kinds of games come into play – and these sometimes backfire. It may well be some of Cleverley’s supporters, feeling him to be way ahead and almost secure in getting one of the two places will ‘lend’ their vote to another candidate in the hope of engineering a situation in which one of the other candidates is given votes in the hope that they are more ‘beatable’ in the final run-off. We shall probably never know the machinations that took place when the MPs voted this afternoon but Kemi Badenoch seems to be very well favoured by the Tory party membership as a whole as she seems to be a standard bearer for the right of the party and her speeches are full of the rhetoric that the Tory party needs to return to ‘true’ party values. Kemi Badenoch is so extreme (to many) that very recently she suggested that some 5%-10% of civil servants should actually be in prison for leaking official secrets. It is said of Kemi Badenoch that she is so naturally pugnacious that she would actually start an argument if she were to be put in a room by herself. In her defence, it said that she has a sharp brain (with a background in Engineering) and may be able to unify the various factions on the right of the party as well as appealing to some moderates. But one cynic has argued that the most right wing but white candidate may well secure the leadership but Badenoch has been a clear favourite with the Tory party membership for some time now so perhaps this is already a done deal. But already recriminations over the voting has started. It is reported that the Cleverly campaign is ‘livid’ with former defence secretary for leadership campaign ‘mess-up
One of our panellists on tonight’s edition of Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge is Conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie, who has the inside scoop on the blame game under way in the failed James Cleverley leadership campaign.

Yesterday morning, I received the rather unwelcome news that my sister who lives on her own in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, was actually in hospital. I had been in FaceTime communication with her and her daughter over the weekend and knew that she was having great mobility problems. But now she is in hospital, there may well be a massive plus side to all of this as it now seems very likely that she be able to have a full assessment of her needs via the hospital ReAblement team and the OTs (occupational therapists for whom I have a great deal of regard after my experience with them over the years) My sister may well have been in A&E overnight and is now in a ‘Acute Frailty’ unit where she is being looked after. Later, I anticipate that I be in contact with her and get some much more up-to-date information about her actual medical condition and, perhaps more importantly, some pointers as to how my sister can receive some help in the years to come. I suspect that the key to all of this lies in ‘Supported Living’ where my sister could have a flat, perhaps attached to and run by a residential home unit, in which she can have a large measure of independent but assisted living not to mention other company before the point comes at which she needs full residential care. Meg and I made our visit down the hill this morning and enjoyed the best of the weather which was to turn much more rainy and blustery in the course of the afternoon. Upon our return, it was the occasion when the care workers calls around to do her ‘sit’ with Meg whilst I pop out to do some essential non-food shopping. I made a quick visit into town and was actually pretty successful in locating what I needed which was a new mop and bucket to apply to the kitchen floor. For some unaccountable reason, our existing mop and bucket have gone AWOL but the replacements were cheap enough. From the same store, I managed to purchase some spare toiletry cosmetics for Meg’s benefit and then it was a case of getting home and cooking some lunch. It was pretty late in the day by now and rather too late to cook a full scale meal so I managed up one of my ‘quickie’ meals which was a tin of chunky vegetable soup served on a portion of rice. After lunch was successfully cooked and consumed, I managed to make a FaceTime call to my sister who is in a hospital in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. I was amazed to see that she had her own little room and when I made contact with her, one of her daughters was with her. I received the update on my sister’s news which entailed, as we have all come to expect these days, a fairly long wait upon a hospital trolley as one journeys through the system and I think it was fairly early morning before she actually could be tucked up into bed. A series of investigative X-rays had been taken, the net effect of which was to rule out potential damage to a hip but which now revealed what may the result of ‘historic damage’ to a vertebra in the lumbar region of my sister’s spine which might have been occasioned by a fall my sister experienced about a month ago. At least now, the occupational therapists and other paramedicals can make an in-depth assessment of whatever damage my sister may have done to herself and, much more importantly, what her capacities for independent living both in the short term and the medium term future. The rest of the family are also busy exploring care options and perhaps things will start to clarify a day or so ahead. Whilst I was chatting on the FaceTime call both to my sister and her daughter, I was given the excellent news that my niece had received the offer of a contract to write a couple of novels for Hodder and Stoughton who are, of course, top flight publishers. My niece shares her maiden name with Kate Atkinson who is a very famous author so evidently she has to write herself under a different name to avoid any potential confusion. A similar thing happened in Meg’s family where a cousin who was an opera singer could not sing under the name of ‘Gynneth Jones’ but a similar name so that she did not get mistaken for her much more illustrious counterpart.

The scheduled call for Meg was actually quite late and, of course, the carers’ teatime call was actually delayed by another 35 minutes so the actual teatime call came more than an hour and a half over the ideal time. But we were a little fortunate in that, upon scanning the TV schedules, we noticed an edition of ‘Endeavour’ (that we used to watch regularly in the evenings) actually scheduled with a late start in the afternoon. This helped to make a long afternoon so much more bearable and although we did not quite watch through to the end of the episode, it meant that the afternoon session was quite enjoyable.

The latest population estimates for the UK has our total population at 68.3 million is edging closer to 70 million. But the interesting thing about the latest demographic data is that there 16,3000 more deaths than there were births in the UK and it is, in effect, net immigration which is causing the UK population to grow. It appears that the rate at which babies are born (approx 1.5 children per couple) is way below the 2.2 million ‘natural replacement’ level. The figure of over 2 million is the figure it is because citizens who do have children have to produce a slight excess to compensate for those who, for whatever reason, fail to provide the 2 children that would be their own replacement. I have always found demography to be quite an interesting subject but with some quirks in it. For example, it is possible for the birth rate to be rising (above the 2.2 level) but if the underling population base is smaller than it was, then the population as a whole may be falling. Conversely, it is possible for the population to be rising if the birthrate is falling but the underling population base is quite large i.e. there are more people around to produce a higher quantum of babies. We had a course in what was called ‘Social Statistics’ at university and these basic elements of demography were quite interesting parts of the course as a whole. We also learnt, for example, how the Census and other large scale social surveys were conducted and after our university course, both Meg and myself were enumerators for the 1971 decennial census.

Yesterday, before I settled down to bed, I Skyped my University of Winchester friend whose wife is in a specialised nursing home and with whom I am in regular contact. Our respective spouses, although they have differing medical conditions, have quite a lot of symptoms in common, so we take the opportunity to have a good natter with each other. Some of this is practical help and support, some of it are common reminiscences but above all it is a wonderful opportunity to share experiences with each other. We started our Skype session at 9.15 and were in communication with each other for three hours, the time actually speeding by. Yesterday morning as I was getting dressed after my shower, I enjoyed the rendition of Mozart’s Clarinet concerto being played on ClassicFM. I can remember vividly the first occasion when I heard this piece. I was in a small dormitory of about 4 beds in the attic of the accommodation in the boarding unit and it was the time of the Asian flue epidemic (1957-58) which swept across the country. Our dormitory master happened to be our art/music teacher and he somehow got hold of a record player and availed himself of the school copy of the Mozart clarinet concerto, which I have enjoyed ever since. The piece has a particular salience for Meg and I anyway as our son played a movement from this piece and won the schools music competition with his rendition of this. A combination of young women, trains and photography (I am not sure in which order) swept away my son’s musical career on the clarinet but, of course, I still have the memories. Today, the weather seems to be set fair so after breakfast, Meg and I will make a trip down the ‘The Lemon Tree‘ cafe which we have a little neglected of late but also offers the opportunity of a trip along the High Street where I buy some cosmetics not available in our local supermarket.

There is so much to say about the current conflict in the Middle East. But if I were to have a conversation with a Jewish rabbi, I am sure that I would pursue the idea, first I think enunciated in the Old Testament, of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ The whole point of this expression is that after a wrong has been done, the response should be proportionate and I think that it is an interesting point of moral/political/philosophical discussion whether the 40,000 deaths in Gaza following the invasion of a year ago is proportionate. The media is full of the talk about the first anniversary of the initial attack in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage when Hamas militants stormed into Israel. However, the latest calculation of deaths in Gaza is upwards of 40,000 which is a kill ratio of 33:1. This does not seem to me to be a case of a proportional response but of course Israel is arguing that it is fighting for its very existence against hostile enemies, fuelled by the people and their descendents displaced in 1948, who have vowed the complete destruction of the state of Israel. However, I am left with the thought that if one were to ignore the Negev desert in southern Israel, then the West Bank (of the Jordan) seized in the 6-day war in 1967 effectively doubled the size of the occupiable land available to the Israeli state. I mention the West bank (which the Spanish newspapers refer to as ‘Cis-Jordan’) because a two state solution has to have a redistribution of lands but I doubt that Israel will ever let go of the occupation of the West bank thus making a two-state solution practically impossible.

We made a trip down into town today, calling off at Waitrose where we picked up our newspaper and one of the friendliest partners pressed a Danish Apple crumble into our hands knowing it is Meg’s favourite. Afterwards, we paid a visit to our local Salvation Army charity shop to peruse their shelves to see if they had any blankets in stock. As it happened, they had not but I just happened to espy an assistant and asked her to look in the back to see if any blankets had been donated. She came out with one polyester double blanket which she sold to me for £1.50 so I purchased this together with a brand new and packaged single sheet that was being sold off for £3.00. Then we made our way to ‘The Lemon Tree‘ cafe where again we received a friendly greeting from the proprietors. We only had time for a cup of tea and then made our way up the hill, taking a short cut through the town and getting home bout 5 minutes before the carers arrived. I quickly put our newly purchased blanket into the wash after which it receives the lightest and lowest heat tumble and this proved sufficient to dry it out completely without the necessity to hang it on the line outside.

In the days when I used to garden extensively and bought some gardening books to extend my knowledge base, one used to see the phrase ‘Choose a fine day to…’ Now chance would be a fine thing but in the afternoon, there was a burst of sunshine so I decided that the back lawn badly needed a cut. This generally takes 20 minutes but I had nearly finished when the heavens started to open. I pulled my jacket over my head and then progressed to give my mower its clean (when, naturally, the clouds had rolled away and we were back in brilliant sunshine again) Now that I have today’s cut done, there are two more before the end of the mowing season. Incidentally, I heard a very good tip from Alan Titchmarsh, the gardening ‘guru’. He used to advise that if there had been a leaf fall by the end of October or the beginning of November, it was well worth a last mowing even though the length of the grass did not necessarily warrant it. He advised that the mowing action would chop up fallen, dried leaves into much smaller and finer pieces and this would enable the worms to do their task of dragging fragments of leaf down into the soil below the lawn, thus helping to fertilise it. That is the sort of gardening tip well worth knowing and I doubt it would occur to many people. I try to make my last mow of the season as near to the 5th November but I am always fighting the fact that the days are shortening with the clocks going back an hour at the end of October.

I am pleased to say that yesterday, Meg appeared to have had a solid night’s sleep which is always a good way to face the day. For my own part, I decided to hunt out a pair of large oversize socks that I wear occasionally with boots and slept in those last night and I think I will repeat the practice of having a pair of night time bedsocks to wear which is useful in case my feet poke out from under the blankets. As I was on my way to bed I popped up through the TV channels and alighted upon the PBS channel which always broadcasts interesting material. There, I soon got absorbed into a fascinating program about the rise and the influence of the Klu Klux Klan in the USA. This has had several periods of resurgence and decline, even surviving though at one point it had been specifically legislated against. A few salient features stuck in my mind of which one was the KKK was actually founded by slave owners and in its heyday in the 1860’s actually murdered by lynching 1000 black people in a four week period with no fear of any retribution. Hanging and shooting was a common modus operandi but with the coming of the motor car we got black people dragged along behind a car until they were dead and their bodies multi lated in a most disgusting fashion such as cutting off a man’s penis and stuffing it his own mouth. The film also documented the making of an enormously influential film ‘Birth of a Nation’ made in 1915 (a shorter prequel to this film was called ‘The Clansman’, by the way) This film rewrote American history and glorified white power and deployed a whole sequence of really advanced cinematographic techniques for the time. It made a tremendous amount of money and was seen by, and influenced the lives, of millions of Americans, particularly in the Deep South. I learned that a Democratic American President. Woodrow Wilson, commissioned a special viewing of the film in the White House when he took office and approved of its themes heartily, giving them his full endorsement. The fortunes of the KKK have waxed and waned over the years – for example, its leaders were often prone to scandal (including at one point the rape and murder of a white mistress) and events such as WW2 in which black soldiers help to fight for and defend American values made the KKK lose some of its salience. But one of the most chilling facts that I learnt was that the KKK lost influence at the point when it had been massively successful. As soon as white power was entrenched in the voting arrangements, legislatures and court houses across the south, then there was no longer any need for the crude methods of the KKK when its aims had been successfully accomplished and legitimated. As well as being pathologically venomous towards all black peoples, the same strictures applied to Jews and to Catholics and to become a member of the KKK one had to prove one’s white Protestant credentials. One way in which they made money was, in effect, a Ponzi scheme in which a recruit had to pay an annual fee to fund the lifestyles of the KKK leaders but received a reduction of 40% of their annual fee for each new recruit that they made. I am not sure if it is possible to view the whole of this program via YouTube because I would like Meg to share it with me in all of its fascinating horror.

Straight after breakfast, we were delighted to receive a telephone call from our University of Birmingham friend, arranging a rendez-vous for the three of us in Waitrose. On my way down the hill, I was engaged in a mental calculation and armed with this, I set our friend the following imaginary (bit it could have been real) problem. If you were in charge of commissioning a supply of blankets for the Russian Army and Navy, what length of blanket would you specify as the optimum length: too short and the military personnel would go cold but too long and the excess material (and therefore cost) when multiplied over millions of blankets would be considerable. We went through the following line of reasoning. Let us assume that the tallest Russian military person you would ever meet would be 6’8″ in height (which just happens to 2 metres) Now you can deduct the blanket covering the head which could be estimated at about 25cm (or about a foot) but then you would have to add on the extra blanket necessary to ensure a good covering of the feet, say 20 cm extra. This gives you an ‘excess over headless body length’ of about 45cm which is about 17-18″ which is just about the right amount to tuck under the feet. So the optimum length for a Russian military blanket is 2.20 meters. The reason for trying to understand the answer to this question lies in the fact that with a spell of cold weather approaching, I thought an extra blanket would be useful and purchased a woollen blanket which was new but ex-military stock as supplied to the Russian army and navy – and the length was 2.20 metres. Now somebody, somewhere no doubt went through all of the calculations detailed above and for the same purpose which was to ensure that the blankets were the right length for the vast majority of military personnel but not so excessively long that an excess cost would ensue.

Meg and I drifted into watching the most shmaltzy of films we saw this afternoon (‘A Dog’s Journey’) which explored a series of human relationships through the eyes of a hound (and it various offspring in which its spirit migrated) This turned out to be quite enjoyable at the end with, of course, a happy ending but many twists and turns along the way. The dog was of course a model of faithfulness and consistency that could not be said of the various humans that impinged upon its life. There was another story called ‘Buster’ who was the dog belonging to Roy Hattersley and this too was an interesting tale of political dialogues and intrigues but told from the perspective of the dog rather than its human owner so as a literary device, this has been tried before. The film we saw this afternoon may well have been a sequel but I am sure it have appealed to some children and other of an excessive sentimental disposition.

Yesterday morning, Meg seemed exceptionally sleepy and did not manage to fully wake up even as she was being washed and dressed. Wether this is a result of her medication, or the combined effects of the double vaccination we received on Thursday last and our little party yesterday, I cannot say. However she is coming around a little after I am giving her some breakfast and no doubt a trip down the hill will wake her up even more. Meg seems to have a big immune response to the recent vaccinations because the vaccination sites form a red circle about 4-5 cm across which the care workers carefully documented, photographed and filed away in Meg’s record as they are trained to do. Apart from the slightest hint of a sore arm, I seem to have suffered no ill effects. Although feeling tired, I was by no means as exhausted as the day before so probably a bit more sleep is the ultimate remedy. I did find an informative article on the subject from an American professor of medicine who had studied the effects of vaccines. He concludes that the bottom line is you cannot gauge how well the vaccine is working within your body based on what you can detect from the outside. Different people do mount stronger or weaker immune responses to a vaccine, but post-shot side effects will not tell you which you are. It is the second, adaptive immune response that helps your body gain vaccine immunity, not the inflammatory response that triggers those early aches and pains. So that has added a tad to my knowledge base.

This morning was an absolutely beautiful morning so it was a real pleasure to walk down the hill with Meg and to meet up with our Saturday crowd. Our conversations are always somewhat wide ranging and perhaps bizarre to outsiders and there is always a lot of black humour involved. One interesting topic of conversation (admittedly started by myself) were the precautions that needed to be taken before disposing of the body of a spouse in England’s deepest lake which is Wastwater beneath Scafell Pike. This question received some prominence during the intense droughts in the 1970’s when the level of the water in British lakes dropped dramatically and in the case of Wastwater revealed some underlying rocks that lay not many metres below the surface of the lake. A dentist in the 1930’s thought he would successfully dispose of the body of his murdered spouse by heaving her over the side of a rowing boat in the dead of night in Wastwater where the weighted body would normally sink to a great depth. But the dentist was unfortunate in that his wife’s body ledged on the aforementioned rocks and the skeleton, complete with wedding ring, was exposed during the severe drought. From the wedding ring it was possible for the police to find a hallmark and a place of manufacture and to link this with a previously unsolved crime. So one must always be careful to remove wedding rings or any another means of identifying a corpse before disposing of it and the unfortunate dentist was eventually successfully charged with his crime some forty years after the event. From then on our discussion moved onto the ground up glass that is sometimes used to reinforce the tarmac used in road building which I thught was called ‘skut’ but I have not been able thus far to verify this word via the internet. We lunched at home on half a chicken, leek and ham pie that I had in the freezer with some broccoli and tomatoes enhanced with garlic and tomato puree that I made up into a second vegetable. This was actually all very tasty.

In the late morning, I had received a text from my sister and we arranged to FaceTime each other at 1.00pm. The news was not really pleasant as my sister reported to me that her mobility problems were increasing and she was losing the confidence of living alone and independently. I shared the call not only with my sister but only with one of her daughters (i.e. one of my nieces) and I said that I wold call back later on in the evening. To help my clarify my own thoughts, I got into contact with my daughter-in-law as I knew my son out of the house for a day and we had a fruitful discussion of several routes forward. One possibility is that we do not move from incompletely independent living in one’s own home (the situation at present) straight into residential care. It may be that a brief period of residential care may gave us time as a family to explore and put into place other options. One options is, via social services and the local occupational therapy services, we explore a range of options to support my sister at home with a care package not completely dissimilar to the one that Meg and I receive at the moment. Another option is what is termed ‘Assisted Living’ where there may be a flat with a range of services, including some medical services available in the very near proximity. There are some residential homes where there is a full residential service available but a kind of half-way house available to those whose needs are not so urgent at this point in time. Of course to consider all of these options, what is needed is a professional assessment and for this social services are the key but getting access to an assessment is not an easy task. I suspect that the key may be a letter from my sister’s GP, perhaps aided and assisted by an advocate as, for example, provided by the local AgeUK service. Evidently, it is difficult to give practical advice when I am not on the spot but will do whatever I can from a distance whether it be research or even some correspondence with my sister’s GP.

The UK is set to be blasted by strong winds and heavy rain next week as Hurricane Kirk moves across the Atlantic Ocean. The weather system strengthened into a category 4 storm on Friday and its remnants threaten to bring a spell of unsettled conditions, with temperatures forecast to fall. While the hurricane is expected to be downgraded by the time it reaches Europe, the Met Office has said it poses a threat of disruptive rain and wind for some after a mild weekend. All of this serves as a reminder that I need a waterproof cover for Meg’s wheelchair before the really bad weather sets in. But we are due to receive a visit from the wheelchair service shortly to assess the suitability of ankle straps to be fitted so I may stay my hand until after their visit.

Yesterday was a day to which we had been looking forward all week as we had been invited by our French friend down the road to a coffee morning she was putting on for close neighbours. This was a great opportunity for us to have some delayed celebrations for Meg’s birthday yesterday and I had already delivered a chocolate cake ready for the occasion. Our friend had taken the opportunity to put some candles on the cake and also provided some party balloons to give is a slightly festive occasion. We were nearly too late for the event as immediately after breakfast I had seated myself in my favourite armchair with a cup of coffee and almost immediately fell asleep. I was awakened by a telephone so I quickly had to rouse myself and rush down the hill but in truth the other guests were still arriving so we did not arrive late. We feasted on scones laden with jam and cream as well as a variety of cakes and so had a marvellous time. Our friend will be leaving us in the spring as she is going to sell up and then go to a smaller and more manageable flat nearer to her daughter in Cheshire. The conversation included a discussion as to how the males of the species present at little coffee morning to always hang onto furniture and possessions whereas the females were more disposed to throwing out when the occasion demanded. Whilst we were talking about de-cluttering ourselves of possessions, we were offered our friend’s cat, quite a large ginger tom, which goes by the name of Vincent (after Vincent Van Gogh, the painter) This cat does not seem to be amongst the friendliest of his species and so I was not tempted particularly in view of the fact that Miggles, our adopted cat, takes every opportunity to enter the house and to receive some breakfast when she espies that the carers are at the door and the front door is shortly to be opened. Naturally speaking, we had eaten so much cholesterol rich food that we did not feel the need for any lunch after we returned home so we settled down to watch the Maggie Smith film of ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ This was one of those films that seemed to have a very slow build-up and scene setting before some quite dramatic dialogues in the later stages of the film. I sensed that Meg was not absolutely staying with the film but we watched it until the very end. Then after the team time call by the carers, we repaired to our Main Lounge where we regaled ourselves with some of the best bits of ‘Black Adder’ courtesy of YouTube. Probably because of the combined effects of the two jabs and the energy expended in cutting our front lawn, I have felt incredibly tired all day and have kept falling asleep which rather messes up our schedules.

It is reported on Sky News tonight that Sir Keir Starmer has said senior ministers do not need to hand back freebies and gifts like he has – as Diane Abbott said donors do not donate to politicians ‘out of altruism’. After weeks of criticism over Sir Keir and his top team taking freebies since coming into office, on Wednesday the prime minister gave back £6,000 worth of gifts. Included were the cost of six Taylor Swift tickets, four to the races and a clothing rental agreement with a high-end designer favoured by his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer. But on Friday, he said he does not expect his cabinet ministers to do the same. However, Keir Starmer is reported as having said that acceptance of some of these gifts is ‘wrong’ but I doubt this will be do much to draw a line under the affair. The whole point is that whatever the legalities of accepting some of these gifts, as the political commentators point out, the ‘optics’ of this are terrible. In particular, there must be a massive disconnect between Labour’s High Command and the vast majority of recently elected Labour MPs who, one imagines by having been out on the doorstep in the general election campaign will have been left in no doubt about the levels of deprivation experienced by some sections of society in contemporary Britain. The depth of anger is palpable and one wonders what ‘special advisers’ have been doing as they are meant to be a fast route between public opinion and political leaders, bypassing the civil service for example. Not only are the Labour leaders guilty of the charge of hypocrisy but this whole scenario feeds into the narrative of ‘They are all the same’ or ‘Snouts in the trough’ But the level of Tory sleaze was on a scale hundreds and perhaps even thousands of times worse than what has been accepted by Keir Starmer and his coterie as billions of pounds were channelled into the coffers of Tory supporters during the scandal of supplying PPE (Personal and Protective Equipment) at the height of the COVID crisis. So ‘they are not all the same’ but the Labour Leader, by his actions, is generating the impression that Labour sleaze is of the same magnitude as Tory sleaze. Naturally, the right wing press have seized upon any weapons that they have to belabour the new Labour government but they have rather been handed their ammunition on a plate. It is interesting that it takes a left winger such as Diane Abbott to point out that donations are not made in the spirit of altruism but in the expectation that favours will be reciprocated at some point. A think that a good dash of Puritanical self denial would not be out of place for the next year or so that the Labour party can attempt to rebuild some of its credentials.

On Question Time broadcast on Thursday evening, there was repeated questioning why the Labour party was still arms to Israel at the height of the conflict. The government has put a stop to some contracts, for example denying the export of spares for some of the military jets, but the total amount of the ban am mounts to a very small row of beans. The reaction of the audience members was instructive because a common sentiment in the audience was to express the view that whilst Israel had the right to defend itself, there had to be some boundaries as to what was acceptable and what was not. The general view taken by the audience members was that the Labour government were implicitly aiding the Israeli war effort by not taking a tougher stance of the export of arms sales.

It was Meg’s birthday yesterday but I waited until she was fully awake, up and dressed and seated in our Music Lounge before we started to open the birthday cards she had received (but today’s post may bring some more) It is our shopping day today and the ‘sit’ carer is arriving quite bright and early so I may be able to make a fast start to the shopping today. The shopping was done quite easily done this morning and the store seemed pretty quiet, perhaps because I was there a little earlier than usual. Then it was case of getting it home and the carer and I unpacked things and put everything away before it was time for her to leave. I felt pretty tired by this stage and, having made myself a cup of coffee, promptly fell fast asleep in my chair which is not an uncommon occurrence these days. I was awoken by the mid-day carer coming on her own – I had been sent a text to see if I could assist her which I was happy to do.

We had a simple lunch of ham, baked potato and fine beans followed by some flavoured yogurt. Just before lunch, a doctor that we knew quite well from the practice visited and gave both Meg and myself a COVID jab in the left arm and a normal flu jab in the right arm. Two weeks ago, we had both received the new RSV vaccine so we should well protected for the winter months. I must say the doctor was efficiency personified and the new needles that are used are so incredibly sharp and fine so that both Meg and I scarcely felt a thing. My son had given me some advice to swing my arm around immediately after the jab to increase the blood supply and this I forgot to do but I imagine that tomorrow I might have one (or two) slightly sore arms. The doctor is one we have seen before and is cognizant of Meg’s diagnosis and prognosis so I took the opportunity to ask her advice whether the prescription and administration of a sleep-inducing antihistamine would prove beneficial. She seemed quite relaxed about this and , in effect, give it a trial so we now have the medication attached to Meg’s prescription list. After lunch, we idly scanned up through the TV channels to find anything with watching and caught the interesting last few minutes about the last days of the Holocaust. I only got some of the story but I think in at least one of the camps, the German guards realised that their misdeeds would be evident to the invading Allied forces and tried to destroy some of their evidence which mean destroying some of the gas ovens and other ghastly reminders of their misdeeds. In this they were not completely successful but some of the ‘inmates’ actually effected an escape from the camps although they were shot before making good their escape entirely. We remained on the PBS (Public Services Broadcasting of America) and straight into a Mary Beard program entitled ‘Who were the Romans?’ Mary Beard had as an artefact for the program a skull of Roman origins excavated in York but the contents of the grave were interesting Firstly, there were several high status amulets and bracelets from which we could infer that the skeleton was that of a high a status Roman female. Modern DNA analysis and the shape of the skull indicated that her racial origins were probably from Northern Africa and not Italy as you might imagine. By collating quite a mass of evidence, Beard surmised that Roman citizenship was not confined to one ethnic group and Roman society in that respect seems to have been quite a pluralistic one. One does not have to be excessively romantic about all of this as the Romans utilised the barbaric practice of crucifixion quite widely and children were often put to work as though they were young adults. But in some respects, Roman society still seems to have some lessons from which we can learn. It was a beautiful afternoon so I took the plunge and got the front lawns mowed which they badly needed. I managed to get this done and the mower cleaned up and put away before the carers turned up for Meg’s teatime call. So it was a case of taking the advantage of the fine weather and I still have the back lawns to mow but this only takes half the time and is therefore easier to fit it. I calculate that there are two more mowing days before the mower gets put to bed for the winter season on a date very early in November. I must confess that after this busy day and perhaps as a result of the jabs on top of everything, I might treat myself to an earlier night tonight.

In the afternoon, we opened the door to our carers and received a pleasant surprise. There on the doorstep was a carrier bag containing some files of (medical) information which I had loaned to our Irish friends down the road. More to the point, there was a birthday card and a fabulous box of chocolates for Meg to enjoy which she did quite enormously. Then, in the evening, we had a delightful pair of young carers, one of whom is an Asian male and quite experienced in the care business and the other still at sixth form college. Now these two form a most magnificent ‘duo’ and work very well with each other. When they arrived to put Meg to bed at 7.00pm this evening, we got from them a birthday card, a bunch of flowers and another large box of chocolates. The young female carer was quite excited to tell me her news as she has passed her driving test, at the first attempt, only two days ago. So when they left with Meg safely tucked up in bed, the young female carer received two big hugs (one being congratulations at having passed her test, the other one a big ‘Thank You’ from Meg and myself for the presents). The male carer was the recipient of a hearty handshake and it was a perfect end to the day. Having said that, I happen to know that these two young people love coming here and it is one of their favourite calls. For my part, I love having the two of them as Meg always seems quite settled and reassured in their presence so there is an evident mutuality of interests.